The course was labeled "Professional Responsibility" and was a prerequisite for graduation and conferral of the degree Juris Doctor, J.D., (formerly in the U.S., the degree LL.B.). This was my recalled experience at USD Law ('73-'76).
[What Ms. Eytan's recalled experience at the
selfsame law school decades later I cannot know. I am extremely grateful, however, that this event was a
good many decades later
.
Ms.Eytan - clear to us all - keys to "ethics" as the figurehead of her public self-promotion, and in court seems to be a never under-utilized notion in her 'presentments'.
I am comfortable here offering broadly...
... that one's ethics, simply put, just "are". If you are human, you have them. They trigger, or signal, to you and to your observers where you fall with regard to your forming and acting upon a course of chosen behavior. Personally, I think the actor senses well in advance of his audience when he is - or may not be - behaving 'ethically'. The 'signal', of course, is not a "red light" or "no trespassing for any reason" shutdown. Of course, this is because of our
Free Will.
* * *
Allow me to make this summary judgment as to Ms. Eytan's behavior and ethics as I have understood these to be:
I think attorney Eytan
sails too close to the wind when it comes to action(s) she considers a zealous defense and what society may not unsurprisingly consider to be acts of "moral turpitude".
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moral turpitude
A phrase that describes wicked, deviant behavior constituting an immoral, unethical, or unjust departure from ordinary social standards such that it would shock a community.
In
criminal law, the law sorts criminal activity into categories of crime either involving or not involving moral turpitude. The phrase
moral turpitude itself has not been clearly delineated by courts, owing in part to amorphous, relative, and various conceptions of morality. Courts however, such as in
United States ex rel. Manzanella v. Zimmerman, have commonly quoted the following in order to describe
conduct that involves moral turpitude: “An act of baseness, vileness, or depravity in the private and social duties which a man owes to his fellow men, or to society in general, contrary to the accepted and customary rule of right and duty between man and man.”
In
legal ethics, an attorney who commits an act of moral turpitude is no longer deemed fit to practice law and may face
sanctions. For example, an attorney may be disbarred for committing an act of moral turpitude in California, under Standard 2.11, Title IV of the
Rules of Procedure of the State Bar of California.
Per Standard 2.15(a), if an attorney is convicted of a felony where either the offense or the facts and circumstances of the offense involved moral turpitude, the attorney is subject to summary disbarment. Standard 2.15(b) stipulates sanctions of either disbarment or actual suspension if an attorney was convicted of a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude.
[Last updated in June of 2020 by the
Wex Definitions Team]
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thus, it seems to me that wrt the
"legal ethics" paragraph, supra., one does not reach the question of
moral turpitude and/or consideration of disbarment
until one is first convicted of some "underlying" offense, the attendant circumstances of which evidence aspects of moral turpitude...
uhhhh... sound familiar?
... perhaps analogous to circumstances of spousal abuse as a matter in aggravation,
not a felony in and of itself, but a circumstance permissible to consider in the determination of an 'appropriate' sentence.
eytanlawfirm.com
