Ethics
Public defender who defended cocaine use as generally helpful needs to be suspended, disciplinary counsel says
Based on a quick filed by the Pennsylvania Workplace of Disciplinary Counsel, a 44-year-old lawyer needs to be suspended for utilizing cocaine earlier than his shopper’s listening to and defending it as generally useful. Picture from Shutterstock.
A lawyer who displayed a “gorgeous void of proof concerning any real pursuit of sobriety” needs to be suspended for utilizing cocaine earlier than his shopper’s listening to and defending it as generally useful, based on a quick filed by the Pennsylvania Workplace of Disciplinary Counsel.
The lawyer, 44-year-old Nathaniel Edmond Strasser of Erie, Pennsylvania, needs to be suspended for a yr and a day, the workplace stated in a Nov. 15 brief.
The Erie Instances-Information covered the brief, which was submitted to a disciplinary listening to panel that can make a advice within the ethics case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Courtroom.
Strasser, then an assistant public defender in Erie County, Pennsylvania, was underneath the affect of cocaine throughout a November 2022 preliminary listening to through which he was representing a girl charged with driving underneath the affect, the temporary alleges. A police officer on the listening to had seen that Strasser was “very hyperactive, fidgety” and that he placed on his sun shades whereas within the decide’s workplace.
The officer stopped Strasser after the listening to, noticed that his pupils had been dilated, and that his nostril was bleeding, based on the temporary. Strasser submitted to a drug check on the request of the chief public defender. It examined optimistic for cocaine, and Strasser was fired. He had been working half time within the $37,000-per-year job, based on the Erie Instances-Information.
In a brief filed Might 1, Strasser acknowledged the optimistic drug check however denied that “his capability to signify any shopper or his health to follow regulation has ever been impaired at any time.”
Strasser defended himself throughout a September disciplinary listening to. He claimed that he wasn’t underneath the affect in the course of the preliminary listening to as a result of he final used cocaine the earlier morning, the disciplinary counsel’s workplace stated.
Slightly than expressing regret, Strasser cross-examined the police officer “based mostly on the absurd notion that cocaine enhances [his] efficiency as an lawyer,” the disciplinary counsel temporary stated.
It cited testimony notes chronicling these statements:
• “Cocaine has a optimistic impact on one’s cognitive skills in low doses. … My psychological consciousness was at a heightened state, not a decrease state.”
• “With reference to any 12-step packages or something like that, that’s just for habit, and my issues aren’t actually habit.”
Strasser’s “refusal to precise regret for showing at a listening to on a shopper’s behalf whereas underneath the affect of cocaine—and his suggestion all through the disciplinary listening to on this matter that cocaine enhances his efficiency as an lawyer—presents an unacceptable danger that [Strasser] will repeat this insupportable misconduct,” the disciplinary counsel temporary stated.
Strasser was admitted to regulation follow in 2007. He has no prior ethics violations. He didn’t instantly reply to an ABA Journal voicemail in search of remark.
Strasser has been represented by lawyer Philip Friedman for about two weeks, Friedman informed the Journal. Friedman stated the deadline for submitting a quick in response to the disciplinary counsel’s advice is Jan. 5. He declined additional remark.
