One Lawyer Was Suspended Over an Old College Citation. What Did Mitch Daniels Tell the Indiana Bar?

A really bad choice coming back to haunt him, and HE is not talking about "a youthful 'soeing' of oats."

The Bratcher attorney disciinary case raises an uncomfortable question about equal treatment in Indiana's attorney-discipline system, and so, a 56-year-old Princeton arrest involving one of the state's most powerful political and edcuation figures deserves a straight answer.

INDIANAPOLIS — Michael C. Bratcher learned the hard way that what happens in college does not necessarily stay in college — particularly when someone later wants to become an Indiana lawyer.

Bratcher, an Indianapolis attorney who was previously suspended for lying on his law school and bar admission applications may once again practice law in the Hoosier State, go figure.

In the winter of 2022, Jan. 21st, the Indiana Supreme Court justices, under Chief Justice Rush, granted a petition for reinstatement filed by Marion County attorney Michael C. Bratcher.

In March 2016, Bratcher was suspended for 18 months without automatic reinstatement for lying on his applications for law school and Indiana and Illinois bar admission regarding a citation he received for retail theft in Wisconsin as an undergraduate student.

Bratcher’s pattern of misconduct and dishonest or selfish motive were cited as aggravators, while his lack of prior discipline, self-reporting to the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission and law schools he attended, and loss of employment following the revelation of his falsehoods were cited as mitigators.

Then-Justice Brent Dickson dissented in the 2016 suspension order, believing Bratcher should be precluded from seeking reinstatement in the future.

Bratcher filed a petition for reinstatement on Aug. 20, 2019. A hearing officer issued a report on Nov. 23, 2021, following an evidentiary hearing, recommending that Bratcher be reinstated to the practice of law in Indiana.

“Given the hearing officer’s inexplicable delay of nearly one year in issuing his report, the Court elects to waive any costs that remain owing in this matter,” Chief Justice Loretta Rush wrote for the unanimous court. Online records indicate the hearing officer was Judge Grant Hawkins of the Marion Superior Court. But other cases took years for reports, and those lawyers were still assesses gouging fees and costs?

Bratcher has no other disciplinary history, according to the Indiana Roll of Attorneys.

He petitioned for reinstatement on Aug. 20, 2019. Following an evidentiary hearing, a hearing officer recommended reinstatement. That recommendation was not issued until Nov. 23, 2021. On Jan. 21, 2022, the Indiana Supreme Court unanimously restored Bratcher's license.

Again, even the Supreme Court found part of the process troubling. Chief Justice Loretta Rush's order described the hearing officer's nearly year-long delay in issuing his report as “inexplicable” and waived remaining costs because of it. But did anyone get fired?

Bratcher's ordeal raises another question that Hoosier Enquirer believes deserves an answer:

What did Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. tell Indiana's lawyer-admission authorities and his law school about his own 1970 college arrest? How is that only he listed on the Roll of Attorney's as "Inactive and in 'Good' Standing," which is it as he resumes his post as Purdue Univeristy President if only on an "interim" basis?

The corruption in this state smells worse than the standing flood waters.

The Princeton arrest

Daniels' history is hardly secret.

Before becoming Indiana governor, White House budget director, Purdue University president and one of Indiana's most influential public figures, Daniels was a Princeton University student.

In 1970, Daniels was arrested during a drug investigation involving his Princeton dormitory. Contemporary and subsequent accounts have reported marijuana, LSD and prescription drugs among the substances involved in the investigation and charges.

Daniels has never denied his marijuana use. He later publicly discussed that period of his life and acknowledged that he deserved consequences for his conduct.

He nevertheless went on to graduate from Princeton in 1971 and earned his law degree from Georgetown University in 1979. Indiana's official gubernatorial biography confirms both degrees.

There is nothing inherently scandalous about a young person making a serious mistake, accepting responsibility and going on to accomplish extraordinary things.

Indeed, Daniels' subsequent life could be viewed as a compelling argument for rehabilitation and second chances.

But that is precisely what makes the Bratcher case so interesting.

What was on the application?

The critical issue isn't whether Bratcher's shoplifting incident was worse than Daniels' Princeton drug arrest.

It wasn't the underlying incident alone that resulted in Bratcher's suspension. The Indiana disciplinary case centered on his subsequent dishonesty about it.

That distinction leads directly to questions Indiana's legal establishment should be willing to answer.

When Daniels applied for admission to the Indiana bar, what questions did the application ask about arrests, criminal charges, convictions, drug offenses and other encounters with law enforcement?

Did Daniels disclose his 1970 Princeton arrest?

Did he disclose the original charges?

Did he disclose the ultimate disposition of the case?

If he did, there may be no Bratcher comparison at all. Daniels would have done precisely what Bratcher was disciplined for failing to do: tell the truth about his past and allow character-and-fitness authorities to decide whether that past prevented him from becoming a lawyer.

But if Daniels did not disclose the Princeton episode, another set of questions follows.

Was disclosure required by the application then in use?

If it was, did Indiana's bar-admission authorities know about the omission?

If they knew, what did they do about it?

And if they did not know then but learned about it later, was the matter ever reviewed?

Those aren't accusations. They are questions arising naturally from Indiana's own disciplinary precedent.

Bratcher paid a steep price, should Daniels, too?

Bratcher's punishment was anything but symbolic.

His suspension began March 21, 2016. He could not simply wait 18 months and automatically resume practicing. He had to affirmatively prove that he deserved his license back.

Indiana's reinstatement rule imposed a demanding clear-and-convincing-evidence standard.

\Among other things, Bratcher had to demonstrate genuine remorse, exemplary post-discipline conduct, a proper understanding of professional standards and that he could safely be recommended to the legal profession, courts and public as someone worthy of trust.

His petition was filed in August 2019.

His license wasn't restored until January 2022.

That means an undergraduate retail-theft citation — compounded by his later dishonesty about it — remained capable of disrupting Bratcher's professional life many years after the original incident.

One justice wanted an even harsher result.

Then-Justice Brent Dickson dissented from the 2016 disciplinary disposition because he believed Bratcher should have been barred from ever seeking reinstatement.

That is a breathtaking professional consequence.

And it makes consistency more than an academic issue. How many other lawyers did this and should the state conduct a survey of all active laweyrs now to find out? HE thinks so.

Is there one standard for everyone?

Indiana lawyers surrender considerable authority to the Supreme Court over their professional lives. The Court regulates admission, establishes professional rules and possesses enormous disciplinary power over attorneys.

That power makes consistency essential.

If an obscure lawyer can lose the ability to earn a living because of a false answer concerning an undergraduate retail-theft citation, the public is entitled to know whether comparable disclosure requirements have been enforced against prominent lawyers with political power and connections.

Daniels' extraordinary résumé should neither count against him nor protect him.

The question should be exactly the same as it would be for Michael Bratcher or a newly minted lawyer from a small Indiana town: What did the application ask, and did the applicant answer truthfully?

Hoosier Enquirer has not located evidence establishing that Daniels concealed his Princeton arrest from Indiana bar authorities. That point must be stated plainly.

Absence of such evidence, however, does not answer the underlying question because the relevant historical application and Daniels' answers have not been publicly produced in the materials reviewed for this story.

That is why the records matter.

Daniels deserves the opportunity to answer

There is another important side to this story. Respond with evidence he didn't have a pattern of lying and dishonesty. Easy to do, right? Besides the state supreme court (SCOIN) has records, right? Let's see 'em...if this isn't a huge issue for Braun to weigh in on, too.

Daniels may have disclosed everything. SEE https://www.hoosierenquirer.com/post/update-penn-state-cocaine-bust-puts-mitch-daniels-princeton-drug-arrest-and-the-meaning-of-a-sec

If so, publishing the application would largely resolve the issue and provide a useful illustration of why candor matters in the character-and-fitness process.

It would also sharpen the distinction between Daniels and Bratcher. A youthful offense followed by decades of achievement is one thing. Concealing that offense when specifically required to reveal it is another.

Daniels himself has publicly discussed his youthful drug use rather than spending his adult life pretending the Princeton episode never happened. His public acknowledgment is relevant when evaluating the fairness of any comparison.

But public acknowledgment decades later isn't necessarily the same question as disclosure on a bar application.

The dates matter. The questions asked at the time matter. The wording of the application matters. Daniels' answers matter.

And what did the disciplinary authorities know?

There is an institutional question here that reaches far beyond Mitch Daniels.

How does the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission handle evidence suggesting that a lawyer may have made an inaccurate statement decades earlier during the admissions process?

Is there a statute of limitations? NO, not for fraud.

Does it matter whether the lawyer voluntarily corrects the record?

Does the Commission investigate when information becomes publicly available?

Are prominent attorneys treated exactly as aggressively as attorneys without political influence or institutional connections?

How many Indiana attorneys have been investigated or disciplined during the past 25 years for inaccuracies or omissions on their original bar applications?

How many involved conduct occurring before law school?

Those numbers would tell Hoosiers far more about the system than rhetoric from either its defenders or critics.

A second chance — but for whom?

Perhaps the most important lesson of Daniels' life is that a 20-year-old's worst decision does not have to determine the next half-century.

Daniels went from an embarrassing Princeton arrest to Georgetown Law, service alongside Sen. Richard Lugar, senior positions in the Reagan administration, the presidency of Eli Lilly's North American pharmaceutical operations, the White House budget office, two terms as governor of Indiana and a decade leading Purdue University.

America is supposed to believe in stories like that.

The Bratcher case presents the other side of the equation.

Bratcher eventually received his second chance too, but only after losing his license and navigating years of disciplinary and reinstatement proceedings. The Indiana Lawyer reported in 2022 that he had no other disciplinary history.

The Indiana Supreme Court ultimately determined that he was fit to practice again.

So perhaps the lasting issue isn't whether Mitch Daniels should have been punished too.

Perhaps it is whether Indiana's system has developed a rational, transparent and consistently applied distinction between youthful misconduct and later dishonesty about youthful misconduct. But why do so many good lawyers leaving the profession under Rush.

That distinction makes sense and yet the problem is real and remains unaddressed even after HE continues to shine a flood light on the corruption and illegal conduct by Rush and her high and mighty court. And that she was appointed by Daniels and she interviewed him and he went to Purdue, her school. One commenter sent HE an email condemning us for our hit pieces on Daniels but we aren't hitting him we are asking him to be honest. This isn't a poker game he played giving us the worst judges in our state's history, like Massa, Rush and others. SEE https://www.hoosierenquirer.com/post/chief-justice-rush-s-purdue-remarks-raise-serious-questions-that-deserve-answers-who-can-still-tr

What doesn't make sense is leaving Hoosiers unable to determine whether the distinction has been applied equally.

Produce the records

There is a straightforward way to settle the Daniels question. Determine what Indiana's character-and-fitness application asked when Daniels sought admission.

Produce Daniels' application or the relevant portions of it, subject to legitimate privacy protections.

Establish what he disclosed about Princeton.

Then compare that record with the disclosure failures for which Michael C. Bratcher was suspended.

If Daniels disclosed the arrest as required, say so. The comparison largely ends there.

If the application didn't require him to disclose it, say that too.

But if disclosure was required and wasn't made, Indiana's disciplinary authorities should explain why Daniels' situation is legally or factually different from cases such as Bratcher's.

The answer should not depend upon whether the lawyer's name is Michael Bratcher or Mitch Daniels.

The legitimacy of attorney discipline ultimately depends on lawyers believing that rules governing honesty, character and fitness apply equally to the unknown associate, the small-town practitioner, the politically connected lawyer and the former governor.

Michael Bratcher's case demonstrates how seriously Indiana can take a false answer about something that happened in college.

Now there is a simple question worth answering: What did Mitch Daniels tell the Indiana bar about what happened at Princeton? HE has beat that dead horse here.