<p>Former Johnson County prosecutor Brad Cooper, whose law license has been suspended for more than a year due to his multiple felony convictions, should no longer be allowed to practice law in the State of Indiana, a Jackson County judge decided.</p><p>Jackson County Superior Court 1 Judge AmyMarie Travis, the appointed hearing officer in the disciplinary case against Cooper, recommended to the Indiana Supreme Court Cooper be disbarred, according to a report filed Friday.</p><p>As of Wednesday afternoon, Cooper’s license was still listed as “suspended” on the state’s website. That is because the judge’s report is not a final determination in the case, said Sarah Kidwell, a spokesperson for the state supreme court.</p><p>According to Indiana law, Cooper has 30 days to petition the report. If he or the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission petition for review of the judge’s report, the other party has 30 days to respond. Then, the judge would have 15 days to file a reply.</p><p>The Supreme Court will consider all of that in its decision, Kidwell said.</p><p>Last August, the state supreme court suspended Cooper’s license to practice law in Indiana, two weeks after he was sentenced. He had pleaded guilty to felony charges of criminal confinement, identity deception and official misconduct, and a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery relating to a March 2019 incident at his Trafalgar home. He hasn’t practiced law since Aug. 2, 2019.</p><p>Cooper had been a licensed attorney in Indiana since October 1993, and was Johnson County prosecutor for a decade, until he was removed from office as required by law due to the felony conviction.</p><p>The interim suspension was expected, as the Indiana Rules of Court say that an attorney licensed in Indiana who is found guilty of a felony or misdemeanor must notify the disciplinary commission and the court can suspend the attorney while considering further disciplinary action. The disciplinary commission is an arm of the state supreme court that is responsible for investigating and prosecuting claims of misconduct against lawyers.</p><p>After a final hearing on the matter July 24, in a Brownstown courtroom, Travis concluded Cooper should be disbarred due to the severity of his misconduct, the duties he violated as elected prosecutor, his harm to both the victim and the public, the potential for harm and risk to the public, and the fact that the entire incident was the subject of significant media attention, court documents said.</p><p>It was also noted that Cooper will remain a convicted felon until at least mid-July, 2023, when he can petition the court to have his felony convictions reduced to misdemeanors, according to court documents.</p><p>Travis said Cooper attempted to thwart the efforts of law enforcement officers who investigated the matter, and detailed the many times Cooper received special treatment in the case.</p><p>Although he pled guilty to three felonies and a misdemeanor, he immediately received an alternative misdemeanor sentencing for the official misconduct charge. He served no jail time. Rather, he received credit for one day in jail.</p><p>“(Cooper) never spent a day in jail for his crimes, notwithstanding the one day of credit time he may have received when he was ‘booked,’” Travis said in her report.</p><p>“The fact that (Cooper) has spent no time in jail for his crimes is ironic in light of (him) running an election ad saying that he was ‘proudly over-crowding our prisons’ … Had (Cooper) been an ‘average’ citizen, he would likely have been arrested for the crime … Likely because of his status as the elected prosecutor, he was not arrested. He was treated differently/better than average citizens, thus further eroding trust in the criminal justice system.”</p><p>Travis referred to a case in which the state supreme court had previously said, “Where those whose job it is to enforce the law break it instead, the public rightfully questions whether the system itself is worthy of respect.”</p><p>She hopes her decision reassures both the public and the Bar that the integrity of the profession is intact, court documents said.</p><p>Seven Johnson County judges and attorneys — some of whom were subpoenaed — testified at the July hearing hearing on Cooper’s behalf.</p><p>Among those who testified were Johnson County Superior Court 2 Judge Peter Nugent, Franklin City Court Judge Mark Loyd, two deputy prosecutors who worked under Cooper, several local defense attorneys who said they had known and worked alongside Cooper a long time, a family friend who also happens to be a local attorney and Cooper’s father.</p><p>The defense asked the witnesses questions about Cooper’s drinking problem, which Cooper himself talked about in detail during the hearing, outlining how and when he noticed it was an issue. Those who were asked said they never witnessed him drink at work, but did occasionally witness him over-drink at parties, some of which Cooper hosted at his house.</p><p>During the course of the hearing which included two hours of testimony, the defense walked the court through what led to Cooper’s alleged alcohol addiction, and eventually the March 2019 incident, referencing multiple traumatic events in a span of a few years, including the deaths of Cooper’s sister, mother, and chief administrative deputy, as well as his divorce.</p><p>The defense asked Cooper to walk the court through his development of an alcohol dependency, and to explain the treatment — both court-ordered and self-sought — after the domestic battery incident last March.</p><p>Cooper underwent a detox about 10 days after the incident with the help of his father, a retired neurosurgeon who also testified on his son’s behalf. He sought medical and psychiatric treatment, and was ordered to complete anger management and domestic battery classes, which he has completed most of, he said.</p><p>He is also in Alcoholics Anonymous, and had received his token for being one year sober, he said.</p><p>Cooper was asked to walk the court through what happened the night of the domestic battery incident in which he dragged his then-fiancee out of her car, battered and confined her, until she managed to escape and run to a neighbors house where 9-1-1 was called.</p><p>“Call it what it was, I snapped … I didn’t want her to go,” Cooper said during the hearing. “I used my strength over her strength and forced her back into the house.”</p><p>Cooper says what happened that night was sparked by his alcoholism and emotional and physical fatigue.</p><p>Travis’s report included testimony from Cooper’s medical doctor, who confirmed a diagnosis of alcohol abuse disorder. Travis said although Cooper’s behavior is connected with alcohol abuse, it does not excuse it.</p><p>“Alcohol impairment did not render him incapable of sending texts whilst pretending to be (the victim), locking (the victim’s) cellular telephone to thwart a law enforcement investigation, and making statements to the media,” court documents said.</p><p>It wasn’t the first time a disciplinary complaint had been filed against Cooper, and previous misconduct was also detailed in Travis’s report.</p><p>Cooper was reported to the disciplinary commission at least twice, and publicly reprimanded once.</p><p>In 2017, he was reprimanded by the Indiana Supreme Court for making misleading and inflammatory comments about a judge. The public reprimand was a rare step for the court to take against a sitting prosecutor.</p><p>The justices found that he committed professional misconduct when, in 2014, he made comments to the media regarding a northern Indiana judge who decided that convicted murderer Michael Dean Overstreet was not competent to be executed for the death of Kelly Eckart. Under the state’s professional rules of conduct for attorneys, “a lawyer shall not make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge.”</p><p>Cooper’s comment that drew the reprimand was made when the judge ruled that Overstreet would no longer face the death penalty. Cooper had said he was angry and suspicious when the case was sent to a distant judge who was not accountable to local residents, and that the idea that “this convicted murdering monster is too sick to be executed is nothing short of outrageous and is an injustice to the victim, her mother, the jury and the hundreds of people who worked to convict this animal.”</p><p>In 2011, he was the subject of a complaint and report sent to the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission, although no action was taken against him. He had been found drinking in a vehicle being driven by a suspended Franklin police officer, and both men were outside the home of a sheriff’s deputy, looking for a woman that Cooper wanted a relationship with, according to a police report taken at the time.</p>
