confidentiality

The Ethics of Rejecting Clemency

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

A strange tale in the New York Times, told by reporter Adam Liptak, raises a persistent problem of executive ethics. Is it unethical for a state governor to reject a recommendation of clemency based on strong evidence?

As Liptak tells it, it had been 28 years since Ronald Kempfert had seen his father, imprisoned in an Arizona prison in 1975 for a 1962 double murder, when a lawyer contacted Kempfert and told him that his father had been framed—by his mother.  Nearly the entire case against the father, William Macumber, had been based on his wife’s testimony that he had confessed the murders to her. Kempfert, knowing his mother, and knowing the toxic state of their marital discord at the time of her testimony, agreed that she was quite capable of doing such a thing, and after doing some digging on his own, concluded that his father, now elderly and ailing, had been wrongly sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

There was more.  Continue reading →

The Old Pro’s Betrayal, Baseball Style

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

It’s a dramatic scenario as old as Homer. The Young Hero (YH) lets his ego get in the way of his judgement, and the Old Pro (OP), now graying, diminished and wobbly, sets him straight with a cuff to the head, a sympathetic smile, and some tough love. Years later, the YH, now established and successful, credits the OP, now dead and perhaps forgotten, with making the difference in his life.

This isn’t just movie and novel stuff, as you know: it really happens. It may have happened to you. I know I’ve played both roles, and more than once.

In 2010, however, the plot is a little different.  Continue reading →

“The Good Wife” Ethics Follies

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“The Good Wife,” CBS’s legal drama starring Julianna Margulies, began as an unusually nuanced show of its type that presented intriguing ethical dilemmas without crossing into David Kelley’s over-the-top Legal Theater of the Absurd. Little by little, however, the show’s willingness to ignore core legal ethics principles is becoming more pronounced. “Boom,” which aired last week, continues a trend that is ominous, considering “The Good Wife” is still in its first season. After all, the lawyers in Kelley’s “The Practice” didn’t start finding severed heads and getting charged with murder until a couple of seasons in.

If you missed “Boom,” or if you didn’t but had misplaced your A.B.A. Model Rules of Professional Conduct, here are the legal ethics howlers committed by the “Good Wife’s” attorneys: Continue reading →

“Lawmiss” and the Plain Dealer’s Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The Cleveland Plain Dealer made one of those fateful first steps that ends in a journey to ethics no-man’s land when it decided to check the e-mail address of a repeat anonymous commenter on the paper’s website. “lawmiss” had been especially abusive in comments about one of the newspaper’s reporters, so instead of just deleting the comment for violating the site’s rules against personal attacks, an enterprising editor tracked down its source. Continue reading →

Proof of Faulty Ethics Alarms in the Business World

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

We tend to think that unethical conduct by individuals in business arises from “bad” individuals, people who either have no ethics alarms at all, or those whose alarms are merrily ringing loudly while they go about their corrupt ways. Certainly there are people like this, but it is increasingly clear to me that most people behave unethically because they have been completely confused by the rationalizations and unethical arguments all around them. Combine this with the absence of ethics training in the schools, and you have a large segment of the public with ethics alarms that are like digital alarm clocks carelessly set to go off at 7 PM  instead of 7 AM. (An analogy that occurs to me now because that’s exactly what I did last night.)

A stark example was on display over the weekend at Computer World, where Mark Gibbs helpfully presented an ethics quiz to his readers entitled “Seven ethical questions.” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce Revisted: Jay McGwire

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

About a year ago, over on the Ethics Scoreboard, I made former baseball slugger Mark McGwire’s brother, Jay McGwire, an Ethics Dunce. At that time Mark McGwire was still mum about his widely-suspected steroid use, and his brother was  peddling a book proposal that supposedly exposed his home run-hitting bro’s cheating ways. I then wrote…

“… Brother Jay says he has written the book “out of love” for his brother, who no longer sees, speaks to him, nor, presumably, gives him hand-outs. Right. Jay McGwire is selling out his brother for cash. This is not a courageous whistleblower alerting a company to crime in its ranks. This is not a family member doing the right thing by refusing to help a parent, sibling, or offspring get away with child abuse, treason, fraud or murder. There is nothing admirable, selfless or courageous here. Jay McGwire wants money, and he is willing to embarrass and exploit his brother to get it.” Continue reading →

Ethics Hero Emeritus: Robert M. McElwaine, 1925-2010

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Every time I hear about a new tell-all book by a famous person’s former lover, spouse, political aide or appointee, full of embarrassing revelations about what celebrities, political leaders or admired (or reviled) historical figures did or said behind closed doors or in the dead of night, I admire Bob McElwaine just a little more. When he died this month, the Washington Post obituary described him as a man who knew how to keep a secret. He did, but he was much more than that.

Robert McElwaine was a gentleman. Continue reading →

The Ethics of Workplace Personality Tests

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

If you have been in the workforce for any length of time at all, the chances are that you have taken one or more tests designed to determine your “personality type.” These tests, the most common of which is the Myers-Briggs, typically ask you to choose among various tasks, occupations, reactions to various situations and self-identified character traits, and then apply those choices to a formula that yields a particular workplace personality type. Myer-Briggs, for example, has sixteen categories; all of them are described in positive terms.

Thus test-takers whose answer reveal themselves as “ENTJ” personalities are…

Frank, decisive, assume leadership readily. Quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. Enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. Usually well-informed, well read, enjoy expanding their knowledge and passing it on to others. Forceful in presenting their ideas.

The tests are often administered by the Human Resources staff, and are common features of retreats and team-building exercises, with everyone sharing their test results. More often than not, employees enjoy the tests, which are a little like finding your sign in astrology. They can be traps, however. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“Loyalty is being outbid. There’s no money in political loyalty, but there’s money in being disloyal.”

—Former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey, quoted in the New York Times regarding the anonymous revelations of political aides included in “Game Change,” the gossipy back-story of the 2008 election by Mark Halperin and John Heilermann. The book has already plunged Sen. Harry Reid in political hot water.

Former aides and political appointees who embarrass their previous bosses with the content of conversations made under conditions presumed confidentiality and trust have no ethical defenses, unless they are divulging confidences to report or prevent criminal activity. For them to do so anonymously and without being personally accountable for the revelations adds cowardice to the breaches of loyalty, trust and confidentiality.

“The Good Wife” and Bad Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Julianna Margulies’ latest attempt to find another hit series after “ER” is a lawyer drama, “The Good Wife.” It tells of the travails and trials of a former litigator who returns to law firm practice after her prosecutor husband, played by “Mr. Big” Chris Noth, is sent to the slammer in a scandal that also involved marital infidelity. As lawyer dramas go, “The Good Wife” is fairly good about not distorting the legal ethics rules. It still slips up, however, as this week’s episode showed. Continue reading →