Lawyer faces possible discipline

Legal Ethics Lawyer in Hot Water for Helping Newspaper Reporter Write About Prison Sex
Posted Apr 19, 2010 4:11 PM CDT
By James Carlson Topeka Capitol Journal
          An investigator with the state's attorney discipline office has recommended suspending for six months the law license of a lawyer who helped a reporter chronicle illegal sexual relationships at the state's prison for women. Keen Umbehr, the attorney in question, said the possible sanction was "troubling," and the standards for lawyer sanctions lend credence to that thought. Attorneys familiar with disciplinary cases questioned the process Umbehr undertook for a reporter to gain access to an inmate client. They stressed, however, the investigator's recommendation has little-to-no bearing on the eventual outcome of the long process. Meanwhile, a review of attorney discipline case before the state's Supreme Court since 1996 showed similar penalties to the Umbehr recommendation were meted out in eight instances. Some of those cases involved an attorney convicted of lewd and lascivious behavior, another who forged a document to avoid paying opposing counsel's fees and a county attorney who showed parents of teenagers a picture of a local underage girl having sex to illustrate the dangers of underage drinking.


The complaint

          The disciplinary case against Umbehr began when Charles Simmons, deputy secretary of the Kansas Department of Corrections, filed a complaint in October alleging Umbehr misrepresented the occupation of Topeka Capital-Journal reporter Tim Carpenter when the two entered the Topeka Correctional Facility in August to interview two inmates. The results of those prison interviews — newspaper stories detailing illegal sexual relationships and contraband trafficking by employees and inmates — landed KDOC in hot water and has prompted legislative attempts to increase sentences for such illegal relationships. Of the subsequent complaint filed by KDOC's Simmons, Umbehr said it is "pure retaliation for what my client exposed." KDOC spokesman Bill Miskell said Simmons, as an attorney, had a duty to report what he believed was a violation of professional rules. The complaint hinges on conversations between Umbehr and corrections employees in which Umbehr requested access to the prison for himself and Carpenter. Simmons says Umbehr identified Carpenter as a "legal assistant." Umbehr says he called the reporter simply his "assistant" and was never asked by employees for further information. Statements from corrections employees found in the investigative report waffle between how they remember Umbehr's characterization of Carpenter. It doesn't matter, says Topeka attorney Jon Ambrosio, whorepresents attorneys in disciplinary cases. Would Ambrosio take a reporter to meet an inmate client under the circumstances of the Umbehr case? "Not a chance," he said. "It's not accurate, it's not truthful." Jack Focht, a Wichita attorney who works on disciplinary cases, said attorneys have a duty to be truthful and shouldn't mislead in any way. Assistant or legal assistant, he said, "You're failing to tell them a fact they need to know. You know that only lawyers can visit inmates that way." Umbehr disagrees and says regulations don't limit the number or type of persons an attorney can bring in to prison. "Where there is no prohibition, I believe I can proceed," he said. He said one of his client's goals was to expose the inhumane treatment of inmates and that serving that goal required him not to volunteer information he wasn't asked for.
          I.F.F.O.C. has discovered if you embarrass state officials, they will go after the bar, in which each state requires attorneys to obtain, to be able to practice in each state. Whereby, this is the fox watching the hen house. Mr. Price, President of I.F.F.O.C. has stated, "Oh what a web we weave, when we practice to decieve."