In re Finneran
| Decision Date | 11 January 2010 |
| Docket Number | SJC-10448 |
| Parties | In the Matter of Thomas M. FINNERAN. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Arnold R. Rosenfeld, Boston, for the respondent.
Nancy E. Kaufman, Boston, First Assistant Bar Counsel.
Present: MARSHALL, C.J., IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, BOTSFORD, & GANTS, JJ.
This bar discipline matter comes before the court on a reservation and report by a single justice, without decision. The respondent, Thomas M. Finneran, a former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, pleaded guilty on January 5, 2007, in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts to a charge of obstruction of justice, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1503 (2000).1 The specific charge was that the respondent wilfully had made misleading and false statements under oath while testifying in his capacity as Speaker in a Federal voting rights lawsuit. A hearing panel of the Board of Bar Overseers (board) recommended that the respondent be suspended from the practice of law for two years and undergo a reinstatement hearing prior to reinstatement to the bar. Both the respondent and bar counsel appealed to the board from the hearing panel's report; a majority of the board recommended that the respondent be disbarred, with one member dissenting. We accept the recommendation of the board's majority and remand the case to the county court where a judgment of disbarment shall enter.
1. Background. The following is drawn from the findings of the hearing panel and the exhibits that were before it,2 as well as the report of the board. The respondent was admitted to the practice of law in the Commonwealth on December 18, 1978. That same year he was first elected to serve in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (House), representing the Mattapan section of Boston. The respondent served as the elected representative of that district—the Twelfth Suffolk District—for over twenty-six years. During his tenure, he served as chairman of the House committee on banking, chairman of the House committee on ways and means, and, beginning in 1996, he was elected five times by his fellow representatives to the position of Speaker of the House. He served in that capacity until his resignation from the House in 2005.
In 2001, the Massachusetts Legislature undertook a process to redraw the boundaries of the electoral districts for the House and the Massachusetts Senate; these efforts culminated in the passage of St.2001, c. 125 (2001 Redistricting Act).3 In June of 2002, an organization named the Black Political Task Force and other organizations and individuals representing or comprising African-American and Latino voters in Boston filed a civil action in the Federal District Court (voting rights lawsuit). The voting rights lawsuit named the respondent as a defendant in his official capacity as Speaker, and alleged that the 2001 Redistricting Act, as it related to House seats in Suffolk County, contravened the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and § 2 of the Federal Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b). Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that although in 2000 Boston's minority population constituted over fifty per cent of the city's total population, the 2001 Redistricting Act "eliminated two majority-minority districts, reduced the minority population in one district, and `super-packed' another district so that it contains a voting age population that is [ninety-eight per cent] minority." It was further alleged that the 2001 Redistricting Act gerrymandered and diluted minority voting strength and created a number of majority-white districts greater than justified by the percentage of white voters in the city's voting age population.
Although the respondent was subsequently dismissed as a defendant,4 the plaintiffs sought to establish that he played a key role in developing the 2001 Redistricting Act and contributed to the redrawing of the boundaries of his own district. The respondent was deposed in the voting rights lawsuit on March 28, 2003, and voluntarily testified at trial on November 14, 2003, before a three-judge panel assigned to hear the case. See 28 U.S.C. § 2284(a) (2000). In his trial testimony,5 the respondent diminished or denied the extent of his involvement in the redistricting process by claiming he had no substantive knowledge of the development of the redistricting plan. He also asserted that he had not seen a redistricting plan before the final plan was filed with the clerk of the House of Representatives (House clerk) on October 18, 2001. More specifically, the respondent provided the following answers during his testimony:
The plaintiffs in the voting rights lawsuit ultimately prevailed: the three-judge panel concluded that the 2001 Redistricting Act violated § 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of African-American voters. See Black Political Task Force v. Galvin, 300 F.Supp.2d 291, 316 (D.Mass.2004). Of relevance here is a footnote in the panel's decision that stated: "Although Speaker Finneran denied any involvement in the redistricting process, the circumstantial evidence strongly suggests the opposite conclusion." Id. at 295 n. 3.
On June 6, 2005, the respondent was charged in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in a four-count indictment that alleged he committed three counts of perjury in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1623 (2000), and one count of obstruction of justice in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1503; the indictment based these charges on the respondent's responses to discovery, deposition testimony, and trial testimony in the voting rights lawsuit. On January 5, 2007, pursuant to a plea agreement with the government, the respondent pleaded guilty to the obstruction of justice charge contained in count four of the indictment.7 During the plea colloquy, as the hearing panel of the board specifically noted in its report, the assistant United States attorney stated that this charge was unlike other obstruction of justice charges: the false testimony did not occur in the context of a criminal investigation or trial, it was not designed to conceal a crime committed by another individual or to conceal the whereabouts of a fugitive, and it did not result in financial gain to the respondent.8 Following the assistant United States attorney's remarks, the judge before whom the plea was offered noted the seriousness of the offense, particularly given the fact that the respondent was an active member of the Massachusetts bar, but he also pointed to the lack of evil motive, the absence of racial animus, the aberrant nature of the offense, the respondent's career in public service, contributions to the community at large, and exemplary private life. Based on these considerations, the judge adopted the recommended sentence contained in the plea agreement. The respondent was placed on unsupervised probation for eighteen months, fined $25,000, and agreed not to run for local, State, or Federal office for five years.9 The remaining counts of the indictment were dismissed.
Following the respondent's conviction, on January 23, 2007, by agreement a single justice ordered the temporary suspension of the respondent's license to practice law. On March 13, 2007, bar counsel filed a petition for discipline against the respondent. The hearing panel of three board members conducted a hearing on the petition on December 17 and 18, 2007, and issued its report on October 21, 2008. In addition to the facts previously recited, the hearing panel found that the respondent accepted personal responsibility for the actions that led to his indictment and guilty plea, expressed genuine remorse and regret, and admitted that his failure to be forthcoming in his testimony was affected by his resentment, agitation, and anger at the accusation that he would be a party to a racially motivated redistricting scheme. The panel also recognized the respondent's service of over twenty-six years in the Massachusetts House as well as his many charitable and community-oriented activities.10
The hearing panel concluded that the respondent's conduct and plea of guilty to the charge of obstruction of justice violated Mass. R. Prof. C. 3.3(a)(1), 426 Mass. 1383 (1998) (); Mass. R. Prof. C. 8.4(b), 426 Mass. 1429 (1998) (); Mass. R. Prof. C. 8.4(c), 426 Mass. 1429 (1998) (); and Mass. R. Prof. C. 8.4(d), 426 Mass. 1429 (1998) (). The panel found no aggravating factors, but found in mitigation that on the day of the respondent's testimony in the voting rights lawsuit, his severe physical pain related to his hip, coupled with his concern for his wife's health, diminished his ability to focus, contributed to the misleading character of the testimony, and led to his aberrant conduct.
The panel recognized that the respondent's...
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