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Fort Smith lawyer suspended, again Friday, Feb 29, 2008 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Fort Smith lawyer Oscar Stilley has been suspended from the practice of law in Arkansas for six months for filing a brief in 2002 that contained language the state Supreme Court considered disrespectful. Stilley already was under a temporary suspension imposed Dec. 27, pending disbarment proceedings in another matter. Stilley's latest suspension, which took effect Monday, was first issued by the Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct in 2006 and was upheld by the state Supreme Court last June. The suspension was stayed while Stilley sought to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation's highest court declined last week to hear Stilley's appeal. The suspension stemmed from a 79-page brief Stilley filed as part of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a commission set up to distribute money for economic development. In the state Supreme Court's decision upholding the suspension, Justice Donald Corbin wrote it was "abundantly clear that Stilley's conduct in using disrespectful language toward this court, causing his client's brief to be struck in its entirety, resulted in substantial prejudice to his client." Stilley said Thursday he would continue to fight the suspension. Because the Supreme Court initiated the complaint against him, justices could not be considered unbiased and should not have sat in judgment over him, he said. "When you've got your accuser deciding your case, then you have a tendency to lose," he said. Stilley previously sought to obtain depositions from the Supreme Court justices but the justices quashed his subpoenas, action Stilley said violated his due process rights. "I was suspended without being able to confront my accusers at any time," he said. The committee that disciplines lawyers voted Dec. 14 to initiate disbarment proceedings against Stilley after finding he committed 23 acts of misconduct in connection with a tax lawsuit. The committee said Stilley was evasive when answering questions in court and sent letters threatening to have a Sebastian County circuit judge and two other Fort Smith lawyers arrested. Stilley has denied being evasive and has said the letters were intended to give the judge and lawyers "an opportunity to explain why their conduct was not misconduct, was not illegal." Stilley claimed Sebastian County Circuit Judge James Marschewski, now a U.S. magistrate, and Fort Smith lawyers Walton Maurras and Mitch Llewellyn violated his rights in seeking to compel him to surrender his income to pay court-ordered sanctions. Stilley said Thursday he will fight disbarment "tooth and nail, all the way." |
