SC Lawyer, January 2007, #1. Read This Case.

• Author: By John Freeman

South Carolina Lawyer

Ethics Columns.

SC Lawyer, January 2007, #1.

Read This Case

South Carolina LawyerJanuary 2007Read This CaseBy John FreemanAn eye-opening ethics decision was handed down by the New Mexico Supreme Court on September 28, 2006. The case is Matter of Estrada, 143 P.3d 731 (N.M. 2006). The opinion's tenor and emphasis on uncompromising ethical rectitude recalls our Supreme Court's ruling in Anonymous Member of the South Carolina Bar, 346 S.C. 177, 552 S.E.2d 10 (2001). The lawyer in the South Carolina case got a private sanction. The lawyer in Estrada did not fare as well.

The key facts in Estrada are simple and disturbing. The lawyer, Michele Estrada, was a law firm associate assigned to defend a personal injury case alleging a pharmacist had filled a child's Ritalin prescription with 60 methadone tablets. Methadone is a narcotic pain reliever similar to morphine. The court in Estrada honed in on three evidence-related failings: filing a false response to a request to admit, suppression of documentary evidence and using a forged document at trial.

In the course of investigating the case, Estrada and the pharmacist conducted an inventory, finding a surplus of 60 Ritalin tablets and a shortage of 60 methadone tablets. The Supreme Court found that the inventory occurred in late February 2002. Pending at the time was a request for admission propounded by the plaintiff calling for Estrada's client to admit that inventory records showed at least 60 methadone tablets were missing. Seven days after conducting the inventory...