Lawyer Rebuked, But Keeps License
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LOS ANGELES — A State Bar of California judge rejected prosecutors’ attempts to suspend the license of Louis R. “Skip” Miller, a politically connected Los Angeles lawyer, but ruled that Miller be “publicly reproved.”
State Bar Judge Carlos E. Velarde ordered Miller to take an ethics examination and attend a one-day ethics class.
Miller has admitted that he met with a juror during a high-profile trial. But Miller said he did not think it was wrong, because the juror had been excused by the court clerk.
Miller had been representing the LAPD in a $2-million civil suit accusing the department of losing negatives of pictures taken by a high school newspaper photographer of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination at the Ambassador Hotel during the 1968 presidential campaign.
During the trial, the jury’s foreman asked to be excused to return to his job. The foreman wrote a letter to the judge expressing concern about “rude, abusive and often vicious” behavior by some jurors.
Miller met with the foreman, who had been excused by the court clerk, in a restaurant and discussed the jury’s conduct. After the meeting, Miller petitioned for a mistrial, using the foreman as a basis.
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