A couple of months ago, I wrote about a California lawyer named Michael T. Pines, who, taking his last name literally, apparently had a good, solid, block of wood installed between his ears. Pines had advised his clients, borrowers who lost their homes in foreclosure, to change the locks on the homes and to break into their homes in an attempt to thwart the foreclosing lender from taking or retaining possession of the home. When confronted in court by a no-nonsense judge, Pines told the judge he and his clients were going to continue to repeat these types of actions regardless of what the court ordered to the contrary. He also dared the judge to hold him in contempt, which dare the judge promptly called.
Effective today, Pines was disbarred by the California State Bar Court. According to a Housing Wire account, the court was not amused by Pines posturing as some sort of Gandhi-like proponent of civil disobedience in the service of great moral cause.
Pines views himself "as a modern-day Henry David Thoreau, who encouraged civil disobedience to effect universal societal benefits, including ending slavery and war," said an 18-page ruling signed by Richard Honn, judge of the State Bar Court of California. "But respondent is not Thoreau, and his cause is not slavery or war. (Pines) sought a few minutes of fame in front of reporters or the television cameras while he violated the law, or encouraged his clients to do so."
[...]
Pines "poses a substantial threat of harm" to his clients and the public, the order notes. No one answered the phone at Pines' law office when HousingWire called seeking comment, and Pines did not immediately return a message left for him. The Los Angeles Times quoted a defiant Pines saying the ruling meant "absolutely nothing" and quoted him saying that he would "go right on doing what I have always done, and it won't affect me at all, or my clients.
[...]
Judge Honn said Pines "propelled his clients into volatile and even dangerous situations, with apparently little concern for their wellbeing."
The judge also chastised him for harming the legal profession, which he said has been at the forefront of the war against injustice and corruption in a battle waged in the courtroom, not the streets.
"Attorneys are litigators, not vigilantes," the order said, noting that Pines somehow lost his ability to distinguish between zealous advocacy and lawlessness.
The judge also lambasted Pines' lack of rudimentary procedural skills in defending himself. Admitted to the bar in 1977, Pines nevertheless "had trouble properly filing court documents and following basic rules of civil procedure in acting in his own defense. Despite two extensions to allow him to correct improperly filed paperwork, Pines twice re-filed and twice had the documents rejected due to procedural errors."
In my February post, I recounted one instance of Pines and his clients acting unlawfully. The Housing Wire story recounts another two instances. Frankly, he's lucky he and his clients didn't try those stunts in Texas, where the Castle Doctrine is well-entrenched, and a concealed carry permit doesn't take a PhD to obtain, or even in Colorado, for that matter, which may not be a "Blue State," but is fast turning purple and, therefore, might be expected to be more tolerant of the antics of the lawless.
I recall one night during my law school days in Denver, when I lived in a run-down apartment house on Capitol Hill, being awakened to the sounds of my next door neighbor beating his pregnant wife and throwing her against the wall. After a phalanx of Denver police officers stormed through the door, applied a flurry of batons to the miscreant's skull, and hauled his unconscious body off to the hospital and/or drunk tank and his wife to a battered women's shelter, my roommate and I were standing in the hallway with the building's manager, who was a gruff old salt, and the police officer who'd remained behind to take the statements of witnesses. The manager told the officer that he never wanted to see that tenant again, and if he ever did show up, the police would receive a call, respond to find the man at the bottom of the stairs with an axe through his skull, and the manager's story would involve "self defense." Without a word, the cop strolled out to his cruiser, reached under the front seat, brought back a 6-pack of Coors, and as we four stood in the hallway guzzling suds and silently contemplating the great issues of life, death, and whether a Beretta or a Browning is better for close-in work, the cop looked at the manager, nodded, and said, "I'd probably charge the corpse with breaking and entering."
I'm not saying that one brand of vigilante action is better or worse than any other brand. As a lawyer, I have to say that I favor legal over extra-legal recourse. However, I am saying that as a matter of pure self-preservation, no matter how far up into the clouds of elevated sensibilities you think your particular state resides, a man like Pines needs to comprehend that one man's Thoreau is another man's opportunity for target practice.
