Inlay

The Florida Supreme Court has declined to suspend the Florida law license of Kenneth Chesebro, convicted in Georgia of filing a false list of electors there to undermine Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Instead, the justices issued a reprimand over the objection of Justice Jorge Labarga, the sole member of the court not appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. (Former Gov. Charlie Crist placed him on the Supreme Court in January 2009.) “In my view, the intentional commission of fraud upon the court is one of the most egregious ethical transgressions a lawyer can commit, and such serious misconduct necessitates the imposition of severe professional sanctions,” Labarga wrote. Labarga said a written reprimand is “disproportionate to the severity of Chesebro’s grave ethical violations” and called Chesebro’s actions “an intolerable breach of professional ethics.” Chesebro was a key figure in the plot to submit fraudulent certificates claiming that Trump won the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, instead of Biden. He was among 77 people pardoned by Trump for any federal crimes shortly after Trump resumed office. The pardon would not preclude any state charges. Chesebro pleaded guilty in October 2023 in Fulton County, Ga., Superior Court to a felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents for his role in the fake electors plan, Phoenix affiliate Georgia Recorder has reported. He was sentenced to five years’ probation. “However, because the conviction was entered pursuant to Georgia’s First Offender Act, and Chesebro’s probation was later terminated early, he was ultimately ‘exonerated of guilt’ and now ‘stand[s] discharged as a matter of law.’ Indeed, upon entering a consent order terminating probation, the Georgia trial court declared that Chesebro ‘shall not be considered to have ever had a criminal conviction,’” Florida’s high court noted. ‘Unique’ The unsigned majority opinion said the court was “bound to respect the judgments of sister states under principles of comity.” However, “we must fashion a remedy appropriate to the unique facts of this case and, after careful deliberation, find that a reprimand is appropriate,” the opinion says. “Suspension or a more serious sanction would have been fitting had Chesebro not been exonerated under the distinct circumstance presented here; Chesebro’s full discharge under the Georgia First Offender Act, however, is a fact we do not ignore.” Florida’s attorney ethics standards hold a reprimand appropriate “when a lawyer negligently engages in conduct that is a violation of a duty owed as a professional and causes injury or potential injury to a client, the public, or the legal system,” Labarga wrote. “Because the discharge of Chesebro’s conviction pursuant to Georgia’s First Offender Act does not undo his admitted act of misconduct, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that suspension is inappropriate,” he concluded.