From: Hunter Hogan
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2012 6:34 PM
To: mom
Subject: RE: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
You know how [meditation] teaches that if you prefer the mantra and clear your mind of other things, it is stress-relief? I do something similar. To cope with stress, I play a game that requires intense concentration. It has nothing to do with law, photography, women, small counties, or anything else that might remind me of my problems. When I play it, I am able to push all of the bad thoughts out of my mind for a little while and then I feel better. After I sent you the email below, I logged into that game. (It’s an online game.) In the discussion forums of the game, there were people calling me a pedophile. The game has nothing to do with law, but people found the information on the internet and wanted to hurt me with it. That is how my life will be for the rest of my life. At any time, in any situation, I might suddenly be accused of being a pedophile or a rapist or some bad thing. Information on the internet never goes away. Ever. And it is accessible all over the world. This isn’t the first time that I was unexpectedly confronted with the false ethical violations. And it is only going to get worse.
From: Hunter Hogan
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2012 4:47 PM
To: mom
Subject: RE: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
[This is too long and too depressing to do a thorough proof read. I’m sorry if some parts are unclear, especially because I use multiple legal terms in some places. I also know that I had some typos and the typos could be very confusing, especially if mistyped a legal term. For example, I often mistype probable cause
as probably cause
. I hope you are able to navigate the errors. The subject line of this email thread is absolutely perfect.]
I know that the cruelty and hate of the people of Illinois is unbefitting of the crime
I didn’t commit a crime. And I didn’t commit an ethical violation. If I had committed either, then this would all be over because I would have agreed to settle the ethical charges. It is exceptionally painful that you, my dad, and my brother all think that I committed a crime and/or ethical violation. When a stranger, who doesn’t know the facts and doesn’t want to know the facts, accuses me, it is possible to deal with it emotionally. But my family agreed with the stranger, and that caused me months of self-doubt. Actually, I still have a lot of self-doubt. I still question whether I am seeing things clearly—because my family thinks I was wrong, too.
Nevertheless, during the times I am able to clearly and objectively examine the situation, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that I never committed a crime and that I never committed an ethical violation. When I am able to turn off my emotions, it is all clear.
But humans are emotional first and logical second. Even so-called logical decisions that we make are largely emotional choices. Studies show, for example, that the color of packaging has a huge influence on what products we purchase. Follow-up studies asked people, why did you buy this product?
The scientists knew that the people bought it because of the color of the packaging, but every single person they asked came up with all sorts of logical
answers. And their logical
answers were never logical. Sometimes they would say things that were plainly false, such as this product was cheaper than the others.
So, like all humans, my emotions are usually not turned off. And when I think about this situation, and my emotions are not turned off, it is unbearably painful that a former friend wants to hurt me so much, that a complete stranger thinks I am a pedophile even though her own expert plainly said I was not a pedophile, that my own lawyer betrayed me, that I was one of the only honest, ethical, and competent lawyers in the entire county but I am facing charges (we had a lawyer who always got drunk at lunch—no one reported him, instead, the judges would only schedule his court calls for the morning—everyone knew it, but no one did anything), and finally, the most painful thing of all is that my family thinks I committed a crime and/or ethical violation.
Your case has become political and the guy trying to get elected in your bosses place isn’t even dealing with the facts, he just wants a way to look like a great hero.
I have no idea what this is. I seriously doubt I want to know.
IF you had a client who’s punishment was far greater than his crime, what would you advise him to do?
It is unethical to advise your client to avoid legal proceedings by concealing himself/herself. I would never do that. One of my major problems is that I refuse to lie or do anything unethical. My lawyer was pushing me to settle the case. When I looked at the details of settlement, I would have had to say, under oath, that I had committed an ethical violation. If I had been able to tell that lie, then I might have been able to keep all of this private. I cannot tell that lie. That is against everything I want the justice system to be. I don’t care if it might have saved my career or have prevented websites from accusing me of being a pedophile. I am not willing to sacrifice that value. I went to law school expressly because I wanted more justice and fairness in the world. I refuse to contribute to injustice, unfairness, and corruption by lying just to save my own ass.
It’s not like you murdered or raped some one.
One of the ethical accusations is statutory rape.
What is the purpose of prison? Is it to punish or to rehabilitate?
There are many goals of prison. I am not currently facing the possibility of going to prison. This is not a criminal proceeding. This is a civil proceeding and it only concerns the status of my license. There are two goals of a civil proceeding: to make the victim whole, and to deter future bad acts. The deterrence has two aspects. Specific deterrence is aimed at deterring the malfeasor (the person who did something wrong) from doing the same wrongful act again. General deterrence is aimed at deterring other people in the state of Illinois (this is a state case) from doing that wrongful act.
The goals of criminal punishment are much more sophisticated, and even worse, while most criminal lawyers and judges know the four alleged main-goals of punishment, they rarely use them as guidance when thinking about crimes and appropriate punishments. The legislators certainly never think about them. Prosecutors and judges never even study whether their punishments achieved their goals. The people who study [the effects of sentencing] are all outside of law and completely ignored by lawyers. But it gets even worse than that. The so-called four main goals of criminal punishment are wrong. When you look more closely at Anglo-American jurisprudence and at American values, it is painfully obvious that the four main goals do not describe what we actually do or even want. And almost no judge or prosecutor knows this. Only a few criminal law professors and a few judges are aware of [the discrepancy]. But even if all judges and prosecutors were suddenly aware of it, that wouldn’t matter because they would ignore the real goals too! Finally, right now, it doesn’t matter what the goals of criminal punishment are because I am not charged with a crime.
It is possible, however, that I will be charged with a crime in the future. No prosecutor would ever charge me with statutory rape based on what happened. It would require the prosecutor’s office to do hundreds or maybe even thousands of hours of work because the case is so pathetic. The most likely outcome would be that the judge would dismiss the criminal charges because the facts are obviously not a crime. If that didn’t happen, then it would go to trial and the prosecutor would have to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a very high standard. Plus, in criminal court, they cannot force me to testify against myself and I have the right to court-appointed attorney.
Here is the catch: ethical charges are civil. They don’t have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. They only have to prove it by a preponderance of the evidence. Some judges say preponderance of the evidence
means that it is more likely than not that I committed an ethical violation. That is much easier to prove than beyond a reasonable doubt. Furthermore, I don’t have the right to a court-appointed lawyer in the ethical charges. And, most important of all, they can force me to testify against myself.
But it gets worse. This type of situation is actually very common: one action gives rise to potential civil proceedings (like a lawsuit) and potential criminal charges. To save resources and time, smart prosecutors will first watch to see if there are any civil proceedings. If there are, then the prosecutor will wait as long as possible before filing charges. Why? Let’s look at my case. In my case, I have given hours of testimony under oath. Said differently, I have already been forced to testify against myself. During that time, I either had an incompetent attorney (she never objected to one question) or I didn’t have any attorney. The ethical charges will almost certainly go to trial
(technically it is a hearing
, but it is very similar to a civil trial). At that hearing, if I am NOT found to have a committed an ethical violation by a preponderance of the evidence, then the prosecutor knows that she could never win a criminal trial, so she never files charges. It saves her a lot of time.
But there is a nefarious side to all of it. If I AM found to have a committed an ethical violation by a preponderance of the evidence, then the prosecutor only has to figure out how to strengthen the case enough to make sure I am found guilty of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. What is the best way to strengthen a case in a criminal trial? To use the words of the defendant against him. The prosecutor still cannot force me to testify at the criminal trial, but the prosecutor CAN use the ALL of the things I said under oath during the ethical proceedings. I had two different times I testified under oath for a total of approximately EIGHT HOURS. [During approximately six hours of that, I did NOT have a lawyer.] So a criminal prosecutor has eight hours of testimony to look through and to find the most damning things to try to convict me.
That is good lawyering [by the prosecutor]. The prosecutor lets the civil lawyers do all of the heavy lifting. And since it is civil the potential criminal defendant (me) does not have any Constitutional protections [such as the right to a court-appointed lawyer]. If the civil case [finds an ethical violation], then the prosecutor has a relatively easy job to get a criminal conviction.
What would happen if I were charged in a criminal court with an actual crime? The[ prosecutor would seek and a judge] would issue an arrest warrant. Because of the seriousness of the charges—statutory rape—bail is [often] set between $100,000 and $250,000. If I can somehow get 10% of the bail amount, then I can get out of jail while the trial is pending. But even if I somehow managed to get the bail amount, I will still spend SOME time in jail. And when prosecutors and cops charge people with alleged sex crimes, . . . they make sure all of the other inmates know about the charges. Even murderers and robbers hate alleged rapists. So while I am in jail, waiting for trail, or waiting for $25,000 to magically fall from the sky, I will almost certainly get the shit beat out of me and raped in the ass multiple times.
But it doesn’t stop there. This is one of the most serious felonies in Illinois. If I am convicted, it means many years in prison. And everyone agrees that prisons (which are run by the state of Illinois) are much more dangerous than jails (which are run by each county). So my years in state prison will make my months in county jail look like a vacation in Hawaii.
I am confident that the people at the ARDC have talked to prosecutors about my case. I do not know what the prosecutors think or what they plan to do, but the people at the ARDC have conducted this investigation
in such a way that it is 100% obvious (to me, a former prosecutor) that the ARDC wants to set up a criminal case for prosecutors.
Do you think it can’t get worse? Well, it can.
Prosecutors have something called limited immunity
or qualified immunity
. I’ve told you about this before. When a prosecutor is doing her job as a prosecutor, especially when she is in court or getting an arrest warrant from a judge (which is in court
), she is immune from lawsuits for everything she says and does. Applied to my case, it is possible that the ARDC talked to a prosecutor and the prosecutor said, I agree that Hunter Hogan is evil, but it is nearly impossible that we would be able to convict him. And it is probable that the judge would throw the case out before it gets to trial. But, we do have probable cause [a legal term] to charge him, so we could charge him and have him sit in jail for a few months until the judge dismisses the case. He wont be convicted, but at least he will spend some time in jail.
Cops and prosecutors have a phrase for this tactic: jam him up.
[Sometimes cops and prosecutors will charge people even though they know the charges will be dismissed or that no jury will convict the defendant.]Sometimes cops firmly believe that someone is committing crimes, but they cant yet prove it. They want to stop the crimes, however, while they build a case, so they go to the prosecutor with a weak case or some stupid charges. Like, maybe they think a guy is a robber, but they can’t yet prove it. On the other hand, they can prove that he has a gun but not the proper documentation. That is a misdemeanor (not the more serious felony of robbery), but if the bad guy is charged with the misdemeanor it will waste a lot of his time and hopefully prevent him from committing crimes. Hell, the cops and prosecutor might even believe that they will be unable to prove the misdemeanor charges and they will often still charge him—just to jam him up.
Beyond a reasonable doubt
is more difficult to prove than preponderance of the evidence.
And preponderance of the evidence
is more difficult to prove than probable cause.
So if I am found to have committed an ethical violation by a preponderance of the evidence, then it is 99.999% certain that a judge will find probable cause to hold me in jail (or to set a high bail) while the criminal charges are pending. Therefore, it is entirely possible that the ARDC and some prosecutor have a plan. Their plan might be to let the ethical charges complete. If I am in violation, then they will “jam me up” by charging me with a crime that they know will be dismissed. But until it is dismissed, I will be in jail with a bunch of guys that all know I am accused of statutory rape. The ARDC and the prosecutor won’t care if I am convicted because they will know that I will get plenty of punishment
while I am waiting for trial.
Do I know that this will happen? No. Could it happen? Absolutely.
Yes, I know all of these things are possible [and I have known it for almost a year], but I still refuse to lie and say that I believe I committed an ethical violation. I don’t know if you can understand how terrified I am of the possibility of getting repeatedly raped, but I still can’t lie about this. I just cant. . . . I wish I had made different choices, but that doesn’t mean I committed an ethical violation or a crime. Sadly, the ONLY reason I am in this situation is because I cared about Naomi and Justine and I told Naomi what happened so that she could help Justine understand why I wasn’t talking to Justine anymore. If I hadn’t told Naomi, then Naomi couldn’t have told the ARDC. No one would have told them. I knew Naomi would be angry at me, but it was the right thing to do for Justine and for Naomi, [my only two friends in the entire county] so I did it. Honesty is what got me here, and honesty is what is keeping me here. In fact, I learned a valuable lesson. It is probably true that there is no such thing as an honest lawyer because an honest lawyer will soon be kicked out of the profession.
