User talk:Jguk/Sandbox1

I don't know whether you're soliciting comments from Wikipedians at large about this, but, FWIW, here are my thoughts. First, my bias: I'm an attorney myself. The only disciplinary proceeding ever brought against me was utterly foolish and was dismissed at an early stage. Nevertheless, it caused me a certain amount of hassle. I had to answer it, because the Disciplinary Committee can cause a lawyer a lot of grief.

I'm not sure whether I agree with the comments that some people made on Fred's talk page, that non-Wikipedia stuff should never be relevant here. In some cases, it might be worth taking into account. In this instance, though, I don't see that kind of substance. It's not as if Fred were accused of taking bribes to throw a case or some such. The underlying charge was solicitation of prostitution. It seems that he was too cavalier about the disposition of that case and about the further proceeding arising from it. He should have just paid the assessed fine in 1997. Having failed to do so, he should have responded to the new proceeding with apologies for the oversight and a check for the 1997 fine plus interest. If he didn't have the money, he should've responded with an apology for the oversight and a request to work out a payment plan. He seems to have just ignored it -- perhaps procrastinating about dealing with an unpleasant subject, perhaps giving priority to clients' affairs while neglecting his own, perhaps having lost the notice under a pile of other papers. Anyway, regardless of what the cause was, he did nothing, so the Colorado disciplinary authorities were left with no other way to get his attention than to suspend him. A regrettable incident all around, to be sure, but I just don't see it as so earthshaking as to justify this major step. JamesMLane 11:40, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)