I can almost say that most of the people I’ve known who were murdered were lawyers. Do you recall the name Jay Given? How about Clarence Banning? And more recently we have William Enslen¹ murdered. These lawyers practiced in Hammond and East Chicago. For Jay Given and Clarence Banning, no one was ever charged with the murder. Upon my own anecdotal observations it looks like a person’s odds of being a murder victim are enhanced by a law license. Unsavory cases and dangerous clients or adversaries are too common.
The lesson from Las Vegas came in the last few days with the reported deaths of two lawyers and the wife of a lawyer. Ashley Prince was married to lawyer Dennis Prince. Ashley had previously been married to the son of lawyer Joseph Houston. She and that son had a 6-month old baby and were engaged in a custody fight.²
The scene of the gunplay was the office of Dennis Prince during a deposition in the custody dispute. Dennis Prince was there to represent his wife. Joseph Houston was there to represent his son.
It is reported that Joseph Houston had a terminal case of cancer. At any rate, he drew a firearm during the proceeding and fatally shot Dennis and Ashley. Then he took his own life.
Some rational rules for a family practitioner include:
(a) Never fight over custody of an infant; and
(b) Never represent a relative in a custody fight.
While less than a rule of conduct there is the observed reality that parties to a custody fight may behave very, very badly. In Las Vegas the bad behavior spread to lawyer Joseph Houston, who happened to be the father of a party and the grandfather (perhaps) of the subject of the custody fight.
The only time in my experience that a gun was drawn in a law office meeting of adversaries, it was drawn by a Hammond cop (the husband/father) who showed up in uniform with his holstered service revolver. He was represented by a relative who went on to lose his law license and to serve prison time for his conduct as a lawyer.
I do not suggest that we install metal scanners in our law offices. I do not suggest that we hire armed security to patrol our law offices. I do recommend an awareness of inherent dangers of a law practice. There is a guarantee of tension, confrontation, and provocation in any custody fight proceeding. Moreover, it looks like there was some premeditation to lawyer Joseph Houston’s episode of gun play. Maybe lives would have been spared if Dennis Prince had come prepared to protect his wife and himself.
The Las Vegas lesson is that practicing law is more dangerous than it should be. How to respond to that danger is within a lawyer’s discretion. There is no perfect solution.
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¹ I acknowledge the omission of the late T. Edward Page from my list.
² From the reported chronology of the divorce and birth of the infant it seems likely that there are factual errors in the published account.
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