Wyoming Supreme Court disbars former Laramie County district attorney

Apr. 4—CHEYENNE — The Wyoming Supreme Court issued an order of disbarment Tuesday morning against former Laramie County District Attorney Leigh Anne Manlove, which will go into effect May 5.

The decision was made following an eight-day hearing in February 2022 before the Wyoming State Bar's Board of Professional Responsibility due to charges brought by the Bar's Office of Bar Counsel. They alleged that Manlove had mishandled the prosecution of some of her cases and developed a hostile work environment, leading to a recommendation the district attorney lose her ability to practice law in Wyoming and to reimburse the state bar more than $60,000 in costs.

State Supreme Court justices agreed with the hearing panel's findings in multiple areas and outlined in a 71-page opinion that she violated her duties of competence and diligence.

"Manlove also made misrepresentations to courts and to disciplinary counsel and failed to comply with court rules," according to a statement from the Wyoming State Bar. "In numerous instances, Manlove engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice."

Not only will the former district attorney not be able to practice law in the state for these failures, she also was ordered to pay more than $32,000 in costs and administrative fees to the Wyoming State Bar by June 1.

"Considering the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the number of Rule violations, the severity of the Rule violations, Ms. Manlove's pattern of conduct and pervasive dishonesty, the effects of Ms. Manlove's conduct on the legal profession and the criminal justice system, and her state of mind, we conclude disbarment is the proper sanction," the disciplinary order concluded. "Ms. Manlove's conduct and lack of candor places her continued fitness to practice law into serious question and does not allow for any sanction short of disbarment."

Years in the making

The path to Manlove facing disciplinary action has taken years. Complaints regarding her conduct started within the first few months of her assuming the elected role as head of the Laramie County District Attorney's Office in January 2019.

By the fall, staff employed at the office began reporting concerns about her actions to the Bar Counsel and to the Human Resources Division with the Department of Administration and Information.

"Approximately six months into Ms. Manlove's term, attorneys began seeking other employment," the order outlined in a section about work environment concerns. "Within a four-month span at the end of 2020, five attorneys, including the majority of the attorneys Ms. Manlove hired at the beginning of her administration, terminated their employment at the DA's Office. Attorneys and staff who left their employment during this timeframe testified they left because of Ms. Manlove's management and work environment."

But it wasn't just her behavior toward staff. There were concerns with abdicating professional responsibilities and the mass dismissal of cases under her purview.

"Manlove's mass dismissal of hundreds of cases based on her mismanagement of the caseload and services of her office constituted conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice," wrote the Bar. "The Court held Manlove's actions were 'a complete refusal to perform the duties imposed on her as the District Attorney.' "

Circuit court and district court judges in Laramie County wrote a letter to the Wyoming State Bar close to a year after Manlove took office, reporting her conduct, and said she had refused "to fulfill her ethical obligations, and they believed the Wyoming Judicial Code of Conduct required them to report her conduct to the Bar for an investigation."

The Bar Counsel filed a request for the Wyoming Supreme Court to immediately suspend this request, but it was denied. They decided to investigate and eventually filed two formal charges in the summer and early fall of 2021, leading to the scheduling of the eight-day hearing.

Panel members dug into the allegations during the hearing and later recommended that Manlove be disbarred from practicing law. Manlove objected to the recommendation, and further pushback was heard from her legal representation during oral arguments at the Supreme Court in August 2022.

Justices had to decide whether the former district attorney did violate the Wyoming Rules of Professional Conduct and whether to impose the guidance of the panel.

Weston Reeves represented the Office of Bar Counsel throughout the process, and told the court during the oral arguments this was not a case about the separation of powers between the three branches or prosecutorial discretion, but about the "failure of duty" and a lack of candor from an attorney.

He said he was ready to move forward following the high court's decision nearly a year later.

"I am gratified that this unpleasant matter has come to a conclusion," he told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on Tuesday. "The extensive decision of the Supreme Court recounting in detail the facts and the law should give confidence that the court is enforcing its rules of conduct."

Violations

A large portion of the 71-page decision was spent discussing the formal charges and the evidence against Manlove.

They had to take into consideration four major grounds to impose sanctions: whether she violated a duty owed to a client, to the public, to the legal system or the profession; acted intentionally, knowingly or negligently; the amount of the actual or potential injury caused by the lawyers misconduct; and the existence of any aggravating or mitigating factors.

There were extensive reasons in each of the areas, spanning scrutiny for her interactions with agencies such as the Cheyenne Police Department to making false statements during the disciplinary hearing.

Under violation of duties owed to the client, she was found to have engaged in multiple instances of incompetent behavior. This is "when a lawyer's course of conduct demonstrates that the lawyer doesn't understand the most fundamental legal doctrines or procedures, and the lawyer's conduct causes injury or potential injury to a client."

"Her failure to timely disclose evidence resulted in the dismissal of serious criminal allegations against an alleged habitual criminal; her delay and failure to obtain, review and assess evidence in an alleged child sexual abuse case caused severe stress to a victim and her family, and delayed the prosecution of a serious criminal matter; and her mass dismissal of hundreds of criminal cases and drastic reduction in services provided by the DA's office potentially caused harm to the public, the legal system, and the judicial system," the court said.

She was also found to have violated duties owed to the public and profession for engaging in intentional conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation, and promoting "distrust of lawyers and disrespect for our system of justice."

"Ms. Manlove publicly disparaged and falsely placed blame on law enforcement for her failure to timely review the lab results in Case No. 20-47759," according to an example used in the order. "We find Ms. Manlove acted intentionally to conceal her lack of due diligence in reviewing the case."

Additionally, the former district attorney was in violation of duties owed to the legal system. They used language from the United States v. Shaffer Equip. Co. to explain how a "system can provide no harbor for clever devices to divert the search, mislead opposing counsel or the court, or cover up that which is necessary for justice in the end."

Their final factors to take into account were aggravating and mitigating factors. Aggravating factors could be dishonest or selfish motives, indifference to making restitution or a pattern of misconduct, while mitigating factors are a cooperative attitude or personal or emotional problems.

Justices found a long list of aggravating factors in their decision, including a pattern of misconduct, a pattern of making dishonest, deceptive and misleading statements, and refusing to accept accountability and acknowledge the wrongful nature of her conduct.

"Ms. Manlove's conduct in continuing several matters immediately after she assumed office and her mass dismissal of approximately 400 cases, including on a matter where the defendant was already sentenced, shows a lack of diligence, lack of respect for the judicial system, and a lack of candor and transparency with the courts," the order stated. "Ms. Manlove agreed that she dismissed criminal cases with no known recourse for the average layperson. There is no way to quantify the amount of damage her conduct had on the criminal justice system and the public as a whole. This is a significant aggravating factor which calls into question her continued fitness to practice law."

They also used quotes from media reports where Manlove said she already knew "'what the Board of Professional Responsibility's decision would be' because she had 'no faith in the fairness of the system.'"

There were still mitigating factors that influenced the decision, though. This included Manlove suffering two great personal losses in 2019 and 2020, and the chaos of the pandemic coupled with "the heavy caseload in Laramie County."

"Ms. Manlove took steps to improve her conduct after the judges sent their letter and the Bar initiated its investigation," justices added. "The evidence in the record showed the employees who began working in the office in 2021 experienced a more positive work environment. We find Ms. Manlove's efforts to improve her conduct is a mitigating factor."

Impact on public perception

While they upheld the findings of the panel and imposed the disciplinary order, the court also "identified how Manlove's conduct negatively impacted the public's perception of the criminal justice system when she placed blame on law enforcement for her own shortcomings and endeavored to circumvent knowledge of her failures through false statements to the public and to the disciplinary counsel."

This lack of responsibility for her "office's errors and false statements placing blame on the judicial branch and conceivably engendered disrespect and a lack of public confidence in the Laramie County Circuit Court."

Sylvia Hackl, who was elected last November to serve as Laramie County district attorney, said she is working to address the negative impact Manlove had on the function of her office and their relationships with law enforcement and the public. She told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle there were officials in law enforcement who said they preferred to send their cases to the Cheyenne City Attorney's Office if it was appropriate.

"Because they didn't want to deal with — I'll use the term 'this office,' but it really wasn't everybody in the office," she said. "People just developed a real distaste for dealing with this office. They didn't want to have the negative interactions."

She said there was also a public perception the District Attorney's Office wasn't going to prosecute, leading to decisions not to call law enforcement.

"During the campaign, I heard a lot of people say to me, 'Well, I had a case of domestic violence, and nothing was ever done,'" she said. "While I can't go find those cases that were dismissed, I can tell you that we still have a stack of cases in here that have not been addressed, and we're working through them. We're making the appropriate charges, and, if need be, we're getting more information from law enforcement.

"If the situation was important enough for citizens to call law enforcement, and law enforcement found enough to present us with charging documents and an affidavit of probable cause, it deserves our attention."

Hackl read the opinion when it was released Tuesday morning and said she was a little surprised because she thought they may recommend a suspension, rather than a disbarment. However, she said the way justices explained the evidence upon which they made their decision made sense.

Hackl doesn't envision filing any criminal charges against Manlove for her conduct at this point and said she plans to honor the Supreme Court's disciplinary decision.

"To take someone's license to practice law, and to require the payment of fees and costs at the amount they did, that's significant," Hackl said. "That's where I think it will probably end."

Jasmine Hall is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's state government reporter. She can be reached by email at jhall@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3167. Follow her on Twitter @jasminerhphotos and on Instagram @jhrose25.