This is weird.

So…there I was last night, teaching an evening CLE legal ethics seminar centering on the career and lawyering of Clarence Darrow (I co-edited a book on this, remember, and wrote a one-man Darrow show for actor Paul Morella, who’s been performing it around the country for 20 years), and discussing the importance of character in the practice of law. In one segment, I asked the class to vote on whether various applicants for bar membership were “fit,” all of whom, like disgraced journalist Stephen Glass, I have discussed here. One of those unusual lawyers in my poll was Shon Hopwood, who served more than a decade in federal prison for bank robbery, became a “jailhouse lawyer,” went to law school after his release, passed the D.C. bar exam, was admitted to practice, and became a professor at my old alma mater, Georgetown Law Center.

I wrote a post about Hopwood in 2017, an Ethics Quiz in fact, meaning that he now has the distinction of being the only person to be the subject of an Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz twice. Though the question was, “Should a convicted bank robber be teaching law students?,” I was unusually adamant in my position: “Hell no.” I wrote in part,

“….an ex-felon teaching young men and women about the law, how to be a lawyer, and the requirements of the profession raises no red flags? I don’t understand how and why the District found that a former bank robber was an acceptable candidate for a law license…..people who set out to break the law and do so by committing major crimes should not be enforcing the law, practicing law, or teaching law. They cannot be trusted, no matter how charming they are, or how far they have come since their release….”

The overwhelming majority of lawyers I have discussed this with disagree, defaulting to redemption, yada yada. I think this is position in part due to the progressive indoctrination I detect most lawyers suffering from along with too much of the population generally. They don’t like consequences, empathy has eaten their brains, and there is strong desire to ignore reality, because the world can’t be as nice if we’re stuck with basic truths, like “People who rob banks are not trustworthy, ever.”

Today I wake up to learn that even as I was preparing last night’s presentation, it was being reported that Shon Hopwood had been arrested for domestic abuse. The Daily Mail reported that Hopwood is alleged to have been physically and verbally abusing his wife, Ann Marie Hopwood, also an attorney (but never a bank robber):

Cops were called to the Hopwood house in the Brookland area of Washington, DC, on September 24 after a 911 caller claimed Ann Marie had been locked in the basement. Authorities had been to the house several times before to check on claims of domestic abuse.

When they got there, Hopwood claimed his wife of 14 years was at a bluegrass concert in Laurel, Maryland, and said he couldn’t get in touch with her because she wouldn’t hear her phone over the loud music.

As another officer quizzed the lawyer, [Officer JP] Mcardle – who had had several previous interactions with Ann Marie – went outside and texted her.

She told him she was actually at the back of the house. Mcardle found her there sobbing with a broken finger, chipped tooth and numerous other injuries, allegedly sustained during a fight three days earlier.

The professor’s wife now has an order of protection against Hopwood after describing four separate incidents of battery, including once that sent her to a hospital. Questioned about Hopwood’s status, the Georgetown Law Center representative confirmed that “Prof. Shon Hopwood is currently not teaching at Georgetown Law.” He has pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor assault charges, and faces 180 days in prison for each count if found guilty.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Should I say “I told you so!,” or is this incident just moral luck, telling us nothing about the wisdom of letting a former convicted felon practice law?

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