* Was Angela Drees punished largely because she is a sole practitioner? The answer appears to be yes. The opposing lawyer in question, the one who really did make false statements in an official proceeding and admitted to it, belongs to a major downtown Birmingham firm. Has he been punished? Nope.
* Why did the opposing lawyer in the Drees case confess to having made false statements in a court proceeding? The answer, apparently, is this: A lawyer faces an automatic loss of his license if he is found to have lied to the bar; a lawyer who lies to a judge in open court can usually get away with it, especially if he belongs to a large firm or has political connections. In the perverse world of the "legal profession," lying to the bar is a very risky thing to do. Under such circumstances, even the worst legal scoundrels are likely to tell the truth. In this case, the truth revealed that Angela Turner Drees had been making factual statements all along. And yet, she's the one who had her license suspended.
Again, do bar associations expect the public to take them seriously?
This all grew out of Turner v. Turner, the kind of classic judicial con job that seems to regularly emanate from Alabama's domestic-relations courts. Here is how we described the basics in a previous post:
Turner v. Turner involves Kile Turner, the Turner in the title of [the Birmingham firm Norman Wood Kendrick and Turner], and Angela Turner Drees, who is also a lawyer and used to practice at the Birmingham firm Haskell Slaughter. The Turners were married and had triplets together before getting a divorce.
They initially had a shared-custody agreement, but that changed when Kile Turner stated under oath that Dr. Hajo Drees, Angela Turner Drees' current husband, had been convicted on two felony counts of domestic violence--one involving his ex wife and one involving his son. Richard Vincent, Kile Turner's attorney, seconded those statements in court proceedings, and that apparently played a key role in Turner receiving custody of the triplets, who are now 10 years old and have not seen their mother in two-plus years.
Are the charges that Kile Turner and his lawyer made against Hajo Drees true? Three public documents indicate they are not--and that Turner and Vincent now have acknowledged, in a proceeding before the Alabama State Bar, that they are not true.
We already have reported on a writ of mandamus and a motion to strike, both filed by Angela Turner Drees, that indicate Kile Turner's statements regarding Hajo Drees were false. Now we have a document from the Alabama State Bar itself.
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