The length of time that a Boone County prosecutor has been suspended over his alleged exchange of inappropriate texts with women who were justice-challenged and linked to his cases is unusual, according to an ethics attorney.
“Three years is the maximum level suspension but, frankly, I feel like the Missouri Supreme Court usually doesn’t impose that,” said Michael Downey, a high-profile attorney in St. Louis. “As a matter of course it's two years or less and, interestingly enough, any suspension in Missouri is indefinite. Often, it takes about a year to get reinstated after the suspension.”
Downey was reacting to H. Morley Swingle’s three-year suspension for violating Missouri’s Rules of Professional Conduct based on a disciplinary hearing panel’s recommendation.
“It really does show that prosecutors have to be very careful in dealing with all the parties involved in criminal cases,” Downey told the St. Louis Record. “They have a lot of power. They have a lot of leverage and when you have such imbalances of power, it's often hard to determine whether something is really consensual or not.”
The Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel (OCDC) alleged Swingle showed evidentiary favor to a woman who was facing charges in a felony murder case after they exchanged photos, according to media reports. Another incident involved an alleged killer who Swingle was prosecuting while giving the murder victim’s girlfriend more than $500 worth of gifts and unsuccessfully inviting her to his home after meeting her on a dating site.
“There's a real risk that he benefited in his dating relationships based upon his authority as a prosecutor,” Downey said. “Are the women being friendly because they're worried the prosecutor is going to let the killer go free, or because they are worried he’s going to prosecute them as a defendant more seriously? So, now they feel they have to say yes or do things they may not otherwise want to do.”
Under the Missouri Rule of Professional Conduct 4-3.8, a lawyer is characterized as an ‘advocate’ while a prosecutor has the responsibility of "Minister of Justice."
“The worst possible thing that can happen in our justice system is for an innocent person to go to jail, so for a prosecutor to be focused only on the victory and not on doing justice is very dangerous,” said Downey.
Swingle had worked at the Boone County Prosecutor’s Office since February 2020 until he resigned in May 2021 when the texts surfaced. Previously, he was elected Cape Girardeau County's prosecuting attorney and worked as an assistant federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
"He's got three years to work hard on proving that he deserves to be reinstated," Downey added. "One of the things that I tell people who have their license suspended is to start working on reinstatement right away by doing right, being a good citizen, and serving their community. This is his opportunity to prove that he's on the right path and that he deserves to be back in but it's going to take at least three if not four or five years."