In re Litz

Steven Litz (defendant) was licensed to practice law in Indiana. Litz represented a client who had been convicted of a crime and was appealing the conviction. The client won the appeal. The conviction was vacated, but the prosecution chose to retry the charges in a new jury trial. Before the new trial, Litz wrote a letter to two newspapers, which published it. This letter claimed that Litz’s client had passed a lie-detector test and had already been wrongfully imprisoned for 18 months for a crime she had not committed. The letter also described the prosecution’s decision to retry the charges as abominable. A few months later, Litz filed a motion to change the new trial’s venue, claiming that prejudicial pretrial publicity prevented the client from receiving a fair trial in the current venue. The court granted the motion. The state bar association investigated Litz for having possibly violated Indiana Professional Conduct Rule 3.6, which prevents an attorney from making pretrial statements to the press that are likely to prejudice the jury pool. Litz had never had any prior disciplinary issues and cooperated with the investigation. The investigators concluded that the letters to the newspapers violated Rule 3.6. However, the investigators also concluded that Litz had not acted selfishly and had only been trying to zealously advocate for his client. The bar association and Litz jointly recommended to the Indiana Supreme Court that Litz receive a public reprimand. The supreme court considered the matter.