Some excerpts from the long opinion in State ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Ass'n v. Barlean, decided Tuesday by the Oklahoma Supreme Court (opinion by Justice Kuehn); Barlean appears to have been a former candidate for the Oklahoma state legislature:
On January 5, 2023, Respondent pled guilty to two misdemeanor charges of Domestic Assault and Battery …. Both charges stemmed from violent incidents involving Respondent and a woman with whom he had a romantic relationship. On August 16, 2021, during an argument, Respondent strangled or choked the woman until she gave him her car keys. He was arrested, charged with a felony and bound over for trial. While out on bond, on December 2, 2022, during another fight Respondent pushed the woman down a flight of stairs, injuring her arm. He was arrested again and charged with a misdemeanor.
Under Respondent's plea agreement, the felony charge was reduced to a misdemeanor and Respondent pled guilty to both charges. He agreed to supervised probation with requirements including restitution, community service, completion of an intervention program, anger management classes, an alcohol and drug assessment and any recommended treatment. Respondent failed to complete these requirements. The State moved to accelerate his deferred sentence on September 30, 2024; on November 22, 2024 Respondent pled no contest to the motion to accelerate. Both counts were reduced to convictions and he was fined….
This Court's May 20, 2024 order of interim suspension directed Respondent to show cause why a final order of discipline should not be imposed. In his Answer, Respondent claimed that a June 2021 arrest, search of his house, and incarceration—unrelated to the charges at issue here—was illegal and led him down a "dark, self-destructive path" which culminated in his arrest for domestic violence by strangulation, the basis for the charge in CF-2021-3557. He attached a copy of a civil rights complaint he had filed in federal court as a result of the allegedly illegal search and incarceration.
