Legal Ethics
Former ACLU Lawyer Disbarred After Child Porn Plea
Posted Sep 5, 2008, 08:37 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The former president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia has been disbarred after his guilty plea last year to child porn charges.
In July 2007, Charles Rust-Tierney pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography, The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times reported. A statement of facts filed with the plea said Rust-Tierney used his home computer to access and download child porn on the Internet, according to a Justice Department press release (PDF). Many images showed children under the age of 12 engaging in sex with adult males, prosecutors said.
Rust-Tierney consented to the disbarment by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, leaving sealed the details of the ethical violations, the blog story says.
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Comments
Posted by J.D. - 2 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 3 hours, 10 minutes ago
Oh, the ACLU is just so wonderful.
Posted by Native New Yorker - 2 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 2 hours, 11 minutes ago
JD and others who want to criticize the ACLU should refrain from doing so, unless they are prepared to be critical of the Catholic Church who failed to do anything about child abuse until it became a public matter. The ACLU has nothing to do with the personal lives of any attorney including Rust-Tierney. Then again, why didn’t J.D. critcize lawyers in general?
Posted by cwreader - 2 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 1 hour, 38 minutes ago
I’m with J.D.
Posted by Heidi O - 2 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 14 hours, 21 minutes ago
I had assumed that those who are capable of reading the article are also capable of understanding the fallacy of guilt by association. Apparently I was wrong.
Posted by Paul - 2 months, 2 weeks, 1 hour, 16 minutes ago
Some of those who are capable of reading the article might be capable of understanding the fallacy of guilt by association but, for all the wrong reasons, choose not to do so.
There are lawyers who also believe that we need a Constitutional amendment against flag-burning, so it is pretty clear that law school is not, in and of itself, the path to wisdom.