Stephen Glass and the "Family Background" Defense

In preparing (or procrastinating?) to teach professional responsibility this fall after a hiatus, I have become fascinated by the litigation over Stephen Glass' application for admission to the California bar.  For those who don't remember, Stephen Glass was the New Republic writer who fabricated over 40 articles in the late 1990's, perpetuating what has been deemed "one of the greatest journalistic frauds in history."  He wrote some of them while enrolled at Georgetown Law School.  When he was fired after his lies were finally uncovered, Stephen first sought admission to the New York bar, but withdrew after learning that his application would be denied on moral character grounds.  His application to California was denied by the state bar, but Glass appealed and his application was twice approved by bar review board judges.  The California Supreme Court accepted review of the bar's appeal this year, making it the first attorney discipline case the state's high court will review in over a decade.

Lawyers and ethics experts are divided on whether or not Stephen Glass should be admitted to practice.  (See here for an article citing Deborah Rhode as in favor and Steven Gillers as in in opposition).  Those supporting his application point to the fact that he has undergone therapy to understand his behavior; that he has apologized to many of those he wronged; and that he should not be penalized forever for mistakes he made when he was in his early 20's.  Those opposing his application point to the magnitude of his deception (he invented reporter's notes, fake voicemails and faxes, and even enlisted his brother to act as a phony "source" to cover his tracks); the self-avowedly "mean-spirited" nature of his lies (several of which played on racial stereotypes of African Americans, including Vernon Jordan, as lazy and lecherous); the fact that he only sent apology letters years after his lies were uncovered, and sent them on the eve of his publication of an autobiographical novel for which he earned $190,000; his failure to return or donate any of the profits from his fraud; and the fact that he only fully disclosed the scope of his false articles when applying to the California bar in 2007, having not done so when applying to the New York bar in 2002, nor when the publications for which he had worked  sought his assistance in correcting the falsehoods in 1998.

The relative lengths of the two lists above probably reveals my bias, but I am firmly against Stephen Glass' admission.  I think his actions as a journalist, compounded by his self-interested and seemingly remorseless actions in the almost fifteen years since that time, make him ill suited to the trust people place, or should be able to place, in their lawyers.  I don't normally take these things personally but, as a member of the California bar myself, I would be very uncomfortable to be in the same category as Glass.  

The thing that most disturbs me about the Glass case, however, is that he explains--or tries to excuse?--his actions as the product of his parents' strictness and extreme pressure for him to succeed and (oh, horrors!) attend medical school.  The judge overturning the bar's denial of Glass' application gives tremendous credence to these tales of woe, citing his parents' hiring of a tutor to help Stephen learn rope climbing and their meticulously organized refrigerator as leading to lasting damage.  As Judge Honn wrote: "[Glass] grew up with deep feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, despite having an impressive academic record. . .The criticism hit him particularly hard.  He had trouble sleeping and felt he could never achieve success in his parent's eyes without going to medical school. . .[To get around this problem,] he decided to create articles with 'electricity' and excitement that even his parents would appreciate."

What's amazing to me about this is not only the fact that many people have parents who pressure them or are strict, and do not engage in massive and mean-spirited public lies for personal gain.  It is also that the majority of juveniles--and I mean real juveniles, not recent college graduates--adjudicated delinquent or convicted of crimes have grown up with serious family and socioeconomic deprivations.  For instance, abused and neglected children are 1.5 to 6 times as likely to be delinquent and 1.25 to 3 times as likely to be arrested as an adult; over 30% of young people involved in the juvenile justice have a learning disability; and the vast majority are from poor families and poor neighborhoods.  And, because poverty is highly correlated with race in America, there are tremendous racial disparities as well.  (See the CDF website for statistics, and Robert Schwartz's article on juvenile justice and poverty at 16 Geo. J Law & Pov 471 (2009).  Check out also Tamar Birckhead's great recent blog post about the disparities among poor kids and more affluent kids in the same communities here). And yet prosecutors, judges and we as a society, are routinely unwilling to forgive them their mistakes based upon a "family background" or environmental defense.  Instead, the U.S. continues to have one of the most punitive juvenile justice systems in the world.  

The only conclusion I can draw from this contrast is that most people are only willing to accept an excuse that they can understand.  The largely middle class and white bar and bench can relate to strict or overbearing parents, but cannot fathom the deprivation and perils with which too many children grow up today.