STATE ex rel. OKLAHOMA BAR ASSOCIATION v. MILLER and STATE ex rel. OKLAHOMA BAR ASSOCIATION v. KIMBROUGH

2015 OK 69, 360 P.3d 508
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedOctober 20, 2015
DocketSCBD 6104, 6105
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 2015 OK 69 (STATE ex rel. OKLAHOMA BAR ASSOCIATION v. MILLER and STATE ex rel. OKLAHOMA BAR ASSOCIATION v. KIMBROUGH) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
STATE ex rel. OKLAHOMA BAR ASSOCIATION v. MILLER and STATE ex rel. OKLAHOMA BAR ASSOCIATION v. KIMBROUGH, 2015 OK 69, 360 P.3d 508 (Okla. 2015).

Opinion

' WINCHESTER, J.

{1 The complainant, Oklahoma Bar Association, brought separate Rule 6 disciplinary proceedings against the respondents, Stephanie Bradley Miller and Pamela Jean Kim-brough. 1 The OBA alleged violations of the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct, including Rules 3.3, 2 3.4, 3 3.8(d), 4 4.1, 5 and 8.4(c)-(d), 6 as well as Rule 1.3 7 of the RGDP. *511 The crux of the allegations is that the two respondents while prosecuting a murder trial failed to disclose to the defense inconsistent information taken during an interview of an eyewitness. Essentially, the Bar Association is alleging a violation of Brady v. Maryland, 873 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), which held that "suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or punishment, irrespective of the good falth or bad faith of the prosecution."

12 Respondent Miller's hearing began May 5, 2014, and lasted until May 8, 2014. Respondent Kimbrough's. hearing began June 18, 2014, and ended the next day, The same panel of the Professional Responsibility Tribunal ("PRT") presided over both hearings. That panel issued two reports, recommending that Respondent Miller receive the disciplinary sanction of public censure, The panel recommended that Réspondent Kim-brough receive no form of sanction because the Bar Association had not met its burden of clear and convincing proof of a violation of the Oklahomg Rules of Professional Conduct (ORPC) with regards to her conduct. 8 The matter now comes before this Court for review, ~

I. FACTS 9

13 On August 16, 2010, defendant Billy Michael Thompson ("Defendant") stabbed Manuel Sanchez during an altercation over a cigar. Also present were Max Melntyre, David Hudspeth, and Jose Padilla. All of them had been drinking outside Defendant's home in Oklahoma City prior to the incident. Mr. Sanchez died from his injuries.

14 The next day, detectives interviewed Mr. Padilla who stated that Defendant started fighting with everyone during an argument over a cigar,. Defendant eventually went into his house and returned with a knife. Padilla stated that he did not know "where the actual puncturing" happened, but that it was "somewhere along Stiles [Street]" (the street on which Defendant lived). Other physical and testimonial evidence also placed the site of the stabbmg down the street from Defendant's house. Padilla admitted to the police, however, that he did not see everything and was not sure of the details.

15 Defendant was charged in State of Oklahoma v. Billy Michael Thompson, Oklahoma County District Court Case No. CF-2010-5654, with Murder in the First Degree and two counts of Assault and Battery with a Deadly Weapon. Defendant was represented by the public defender's office. The respondents, Miller and Kimbrough from the Oklahoma County District Attorney's Office, were assigned the prosecution. Respondent Miller- was the lead attorney and Respondent Kimbrough was "second chair," assisting Miller, who was trying her first murder case.

T6 During the preparation stage, Defendant's attorney, Kent Bridge, indicated to Respondent Miller that Defendant might claim that he acted in self-defense on his own property. Bridge argued that Oklahoma's "Stand Your -Ground" law would absolve Defendant of any wrongdoing if he had been repelling an attack against himself on his own property. Respondent Miller made a note in the district attorney's (hereinafter "DA") file of her conversation with Bridge. She included in her notes, "Bridge stated that he thought ... on [Manslaughter IJ was fair & this wouldn't even be a crime if the stabbing happened in the Defendant's driveway. [sic]"

T7 The State's theory of the case was that Defendant, armed with a knife, chased the victim away from Defendant's home and stabbed him in the street, a few houses away. *512 This theory was consistent with the physical evidence and witness interviews.

T8 On October 21, 2011, Judge Donald Deason set the matter for jury trial on March 12, 2012. In January, the defense was reassigned to Assistant Public Defender Shea Smith. In the weeks leading up to the Thompson trial, Respondent Kimbrough, an experienced prosecutor, finished a murder trial in which she was the lead attorney. During this time she was also dealing with health issues surrounding her parents, who lived in Lawton, Oklahoma. On January 14th, both respondents conducted the preliminary hearing, during which Melntyre and Hudspeth testified, but Padilla did not.

T9 Padilla had moved since the stabbing occurred and both the State and the Defense had difficulty finding him. As a result, Padilla did not testify at the preliminary hearing. On February 28th, an investigator for the DA located him in a nursing home. Respondent Miller filed the State's Witness and Exhibit List two days later, on March 1, 2012, 10 listing Padilla as a witness and giving his incorrect, former address and contact information. In the Witness and Exhibit List, Respondent Miller indicated that Padilla would testify that he saw Defendant pursue the victim with knives, She did not indicate he would testify where the stabbing occurred.

10 On March 5th, the two respondents interviewed Padilla at the nursing home. During the meeting, Padilla gave statements that were inconsistent with his earlier statements in the police report, and he recounted events that were chronologically out of order. The notes taken by both respondents record that Padilla stated the victims were stabbed either in a driveway or at the end of a driveway. However, none of those notes indicate that Padilla ever described the stabbing as having occurred specifically in Defendant's driveway, nor did they indicate that the stabbing occurred in the street away from Defendant's house. Respondent. Kim-brough's notes did reflect that Padilla recalled the victim and others "left and went toward 41st toward home."

11 The notes taken by the respondents were not intended to be complete recitations of Padilla's statements, but after realizing Padilla's story was full of inconsistencies, both Kimbrough and Miller stopped taking notes. He had contradicted himself during the interview multiple times. His memory of the events was vague and unreliable, and he referred back generally to whatever he told the police as being more accurate.

T12 After they stopped taking notes, the respondents tried to clarify Padilla's statements by showing him erime seene photographs taken at Defendant's house and along Stiles Street. Eventually, Padilla affirmed the facts he told the police detectives immediately after the stabbing, which facts were consistent with the State's case.

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2015 OK 69, 360 P.3d 508, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-oklahoma-bar-association-v-miller-and-state-ex-rel-oklahoma-okla-2015.