Whatever tough-talking, populist-pandering nonsense Mark McCloskey tells voters in his U.S. Senate bid, the St. Louis personal injury lawyer pleaded guilty to a crime after recklessly wielding a gun at protesters marching peacefully past his home last year. And he said he’d do it again. That makes a question before the Missouri Supreme Court an easy one: Both McCloskey and his wife, law partner and fellow pretend-Rambo Patricia McCloskey, should have their law licenses suspended.
On June 28 of last year, as a Black Lives Matter protest streamed past their Central West End home en route to the home of then-Mayor Lyda Krewson, the McCloskeys emerged, armed and barefoot, and made a spectacle of confronting protesters who weren’t confronting them. Mark McCloskey cradled a semi-automatic rifle; Patricia McCloskey held a small handgun — which, in a move of stunning recklessness, she pointed directly at the crowd. Luckily, the protesters were more level-headed than the couple, and moved on.
The couple was subsequently charged with felony unlawful use of weapons, a textbook description of what these two sworn officers of the court did. They ultimately took a plea bargain, pleading guilty to lesser misdemeanor charges of assault and harassment and agreeing to pay small fines without jail time. But Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, preening for his base as always, pardoned the couple of even that modest conviction.
Missouri Chief Disciplinary Counsel Alan Pratzel, whose office is responsible for investigating ethics complaints against attorneys, is now recommending that the state Supreme Court suspend the McCloskeys’ law licenses indefinitely. Pratzel alleges their actions displayed “moral turpitude” and “indifference to public safety.” He noted the couples’ long history of shady legal antics even before last year’s incident — a history that, as documented in the Post-Dispatch last year, includes constant, gratuitous litigation against neighbors, employers and even their own relatives.
But the most persuasive argument for suspending their licenses is the utter lack of remorse the couple has shown even after acknowledging in court that they broke the law. “I’d do it again,” Mark McCloskey defiantly declared after admitting he broke the law. It’s a phrase that could stand alone as his entire rationale in his campaign for Missouri’s 2022 Republican Senate nomination.
Pratzel’s motion notes that the governor’s pardon doesn’t change the fact that they pleaded guilty to a crime, after which Mark McCloskey immediately declared he would commit that crime again. If that’s not “moral turpitude” (one of the standards for license suspension), what is?
Whether the McCloskeys ever practice law again is less important than the message it would send if the court agrees to suspend their licenses: Fetishizing gun violence and flouting the laws and norms of civilized society may play well among the right-wing base McCloskey seeks to capture in his Senate run. But it’s not how lawyers are supposed to behave.
