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Saturday, May 24, 2008

Ind. Decisions - More on: Supreme Court bars Geoffrey N. Fieger from temporary admission

Updating this ILB entry from yesterday, the South Bend Tribune has an AP story today that begins:

The Indiana Supreme Court banned a high-profile Michigan attorney from seeking temporary admission to the Indiana bar for two years Friday because of professional misconduct.

The high court ruled that Geoffrey Fieger, best known for representing assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian and running for Michigan governor in 1998, misrepresented the status of a disciplinary action pending against him in Michigan when he applied for temporary admission to the bar in St. Joseph County in 2005.

The court said Fieger asserted under oath that no "formal disciplinary proceedings" were pending against him, saying he altered the form to insert the word "formal." But the court said the Michigan Supreme Court at the time was considering whether Fieger should be reprimanded for "vulgar and crude" attacks against appeals court judges.

The court said Fieger testified he intentionally added the word "formal" to protect himself from a charge of dishonesty in case there was some "complaint floating out there that I don't even know about or that I don't recall. ..."

The court said if that were true, it would have made more sense to say no "known" disciplinary proceedings were pending.

The Indiana Supreme Court also said a "probable cause panelist" of the State Bar of Arizona, where Fieger is also admitted to practice, had issued a finding that probable cause existed for filing a disciplinary complaint against Fieger when he applied for the temporary admission.

See also this ILB entry from Dec. 10, 2007, quoting from a story of that date in the Muncie Star-Press: "Well-known Michigan attorney Geoffrey Fieger is the lead counsel in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the estate of Michael McKinney, a Ball State University senior who was shot to death four years ago by a rookie Ball State police officer."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 24, 2008 10:15 AM
Posted to Ind. Sup.Ct. Decisions