ATLANTA — Millard Farmer, a noted anti-death penalty lawyer from Newnan whose work focused on racial disparities in the post-Civil Rights Movement era, was disbarred by the Georgia Supreme Court in an opinion released on Monday.
Last year a jury found Farmer liable in a federal civil racketeering case, concluding he’d committed attempted theft by extortion, attempted bribery and influencing witnesses, among other acts.
The Georgia Supreme Court highlighted that case, which involved Farmer representing a woman in a child custody battle with her ex-husband, in its opinion.
The Court said that Farmer had engaged in a pattern of frivolous and obstructing legal moves he called “conflictineering,” meant to “disrupt the judicial process to the point that either the court or the opposing party would simply capitulate for the sake of restoring order.” The strategy resulted in more than 500 filings in the case.
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The Court said Farmer also threatened witnesses, including threatening to destroy the professional reputation of a psychiatrist - a former client of his - who testified at proceedings. When that psychiatrist gave unfavorable testimony for his client, he allegedly retaliated by “revealing sensitive information” she’d disclosed to him when he represented her and accusing her of being on drugs.
He was also accused of “orchestrating an elaborate scheme to manufacture evidence of child abuse and neglect” after the court awarded temporary custody of the children to the husband, and advising the wife to encourage them to run away from his home.
The Court said Farmer did not properly respond to formal complaints from the State Bar and thereby defaulted to admission of the allegations against him in disciplinary proceedings.
“Multiple aggravating factors are apparent in this case, including Farmer’s pattern of misconduct; his multiple violations; his intentional noncompliance in the disciplinary proceedings; his mischaracterizations of the facts; his selfish motive; his refusal to acknowledge the wrongful nature of his conduct; his substantial experience in the practice of law; and his apparent indifference to restitution, as demonstrated by his failure to satisfy the judgment in the civil RICO case,” the Georgia Supreme Court held. “On this record, we have little difficulty concluding that disbarment is the appropriate sanction in this matter.”
Farmer gained recognition as a crusading attorney in the ‘70s, most notably in a case involving five black youths known as the Dawson Five who were accused of murder in south Georgia.
In that case, which saw the district attorney in Terrell County seek the death penalty, the charges were ultimately dropped after it emerged key confessions had been forced.
According to a Georgia State University Library profile of Farmer, he focused much of his advocacy on jury composition after he “became aware of how easily jury selection could reflect the racial bias of a community.”
“Farmer’s experience had taught him that racial bias and unequal access to legal representation could decide a case before it even started,” the profile states. “When the death penalty was involved, these imbalances became especially dangerous.”
He also formed a legal group, the Team Defense Project, which had been funded by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
According to the Georgia State Library, Farmer had a reputation as a “wiley, stubborn” attorney with a “flamboyant personality.”
