In the Matter of: Fletcher, Patricia Jean (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-185-13)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC‑11441 IN THE MATTER OF PATRICIA JEAN FLETCHER.[1] October 31, 2013. Attorney at Law, Reinstatement, Disbarment. Board of Bar Overseers. The petitioner, Patricia Jean Fletcher, appeals from an order of a single justice of this court denying her petition for reinstatement to the bar. We affirm. In 1992, the petitioner was temporarily suspended from the practice of law in Massachusetts following her conviction in the State of New York of “serious crimes” within the meaning of S.J.C. Rule 4:01, § 12 (3) (b), as appearing in 425 Mass. 1313 (1997).[2] Bar counsel thereafter filed a petition for discipline alleging, in addition to the convictions, that the petitioner violated the terms of her New York probation, failed to report the convictions to bar counsel and to cooperate in bar counsel’s investigation, and engaged in other misconduct involving deceit and misrepresentation. See S.J.C. Rule 3:07, Canon 1, DR 1‑102 (A) (4), (5), & (6), as appearing in 382 Mass. 769 (1981); S.J.C. Rule 4:01, § 3(1), as amended through 382 Mass. 820 (1981).[3] She was disbarred in 2000. Matter of Wallenstein, 16 Mass. Att’y Discipline Rep. 409 (2000). In 2011, she filed a petition for reinstatement. A hearing panel of the Board of Bar Overseers (board), after a hearing, recommended that the petition be denied. The petitioner appealed to the board, which accepted the hearing panel’s findings and recommendation and voted to recommend that the petition be denied. The matter proceeded in the county court. The single justice after hearing accepted the board’s recommendation and denied the petition for reinstatement. Discussion. We do not review in this proceeding the underlying criminal convictions on which the orders of temporary suspension and disbarment were based.[4] “Basic respect for the integrity and finality of a prior unreversed criminal judgment demands that it be conclusive on the issue of guilt and that an attorney not be permitted to retry the result at a much later date in [her] reinstatement proceedings.” Matter of Hiss, 368 Mass. 447, 450 (1975). Instead, what is at issue on a petition for reinstatement is whether the petitioner has demonstrated that she has “the moral qualifications, competency and learning in law required for admission to practice law in this Commonwealth, and that . . . her resumption of the practice of law will […]