ALLEGED ETHICS VIOLATIONS OF ATTORNEY DAVID ALEX The ethics violations in question revolve around the civil proceedings:

DC091460 DR. CHRISTOPHER NULF (represented by Attorney Raul Loya) vs. SOUTHWESTERN INSTITUTE OF FORENSIC SCIENCE (SWIFS) AND DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS (indirectly represented by Attorney David Alex) ...and criminal proceedings: F0873084V THE STATE OF TEXAS (represented by Attorney David Alex) vs. STANLEY VERNELL LEDBETTER (represented by Attorney Lori Ordiway) Judicial District Court 292nd of Dallas County, Texas. (Witness testimony, December 17-23, 2009) (Civil) Attorney Raul Loya, (Appellate Defense) Attorney Lori Ordiway, and (State Prosecutor) Attorney David Alex are the lawyers alleged of ethical misconduct. Three different complaint documents have been submitted specific to each of these attorneys, but each document should be cross-referenced with the others to accurately ascertain the entire sequence of events that occurred. BACKGROUND I was employed as a forensic biologist at the Dallas County Crime Lab (aka The Southwestern Institute of Forensic Science, SWIFS) from March 2008 to May 2009. Due to observed scientific misconduct within the crime lab, I wrote a number of internal memos, spoke with Investigator James Hammond (Investigator with the Dallas County District Attorneys Office, Conviction Integrity Unit), and wrote reports to the Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS) and the Texas Forensic Science Commission (TFSC) describing the various scientific and protocol violations occurring. I was terminated from the lab shortly after notifying external authorities of the on-going unresolved scientific problems in the crime lab. My wrongful termination from the crime lab lead me to hire civil Attorney Raul Loya (contracted July 27, 2009 see attached) who proceeded to file a Letter of Intent to Sue (dated August 6, 2009 see attached) followed by a Wrongful Termination/Whistleblower Civil Law Suit (filed October 21, 2009 see attached.) At the encouragement of Attorney Raul Loya, several local news stations were notified of the Wrongful Termination/Whistleblower Law Suit which subsequently lead to television and newspaper publicity1.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/crime/stories/DN-crimesuit_21met.ART.State.Edition1.4bc0ab1.html

Thursday December 17, 2009 On the night of, I was handed a subpoena (see attached) by an Investigator for Defense Attorney Lori Ordiway to appear in court the next morning to testify (a 13 hour notification.) In a brief phone call to Attorney Lori Ordiway that night, I told her I received the subpoena and would be at the court house Friday morning. She informed me that she was representing the defendant on appeal due to prior inadequate legal representation. Attorney Lori Ordiway also told me that my testimony would be in support of her argument that the Dallas County Crime Lab was using inadequate scientific practices and that the defendants prior legal representation should have been informed of these questionable scientific practices. A subsequent phone call was placed to my Civil Attorney Raul Loya to inform him of the subpoena. I, of course, was adamantly against providing witness testimony because of my pending civil litigation against SWIFS (whom Attorney David Alex was defending in the criminal proceeding). Attorney Lori Ordiway knew very little of my background or experience within the crime lab (and was not concerned with protecting or defending my information pertaining to my civil litigation.) Dallas County Attorney David Alex, on the other hand, had knowledge of my entire work history at SWIFS and prominently displayed a litany of paperwork of memos and reports pertaining to my work across the jury bench during my testimony (there was no jury). Because Attorney Raul Loya was not allowed to speak or object during my testimony in the criminal proceedings, my testimony under direct examination and cross-examination would be used as a means to gain information to impeach my credibility for the pending civil law suit against the crime lab2. I viewed this legal tactic as an unfair advantage for the Dallas County crime lab in the pending civil proceedings and thus a compromise of my constitutional rights to due process. It is wholly unethical to use a criminal proceeding for the sole purpose of gaining information from a witness for pending civil matters involving that witness. Friday December 18, 2009 Per the subpoena, I arrived and waited at the court house until Attorney Lori Ordiway informed me later that afternoon that my testimony was suspended until Monday morning. Attorney Raul Loya did not appear at the court house to assist me even though several phone calls were made to him. Monday December 21, 2009 In an attempt to help Defense Attorney Lori Ordiway with her argument of questionable scientific practices within the crime lab, I presented her with an internal document from the crime lab, a SWIFS Corrective Action Request (see attached -- CAR #07-007. I obtained it via a Public Information Act-Open Records request from SWIFS in the Summer 2009 in preparation for my civil proceedings.)
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Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 4.04 Respect for Rights of Third Persons (a) In representing a client, a lawyer shall not use means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass, delay, or burden a third person, or use methods of obtaining evidence that violate the legal rights of such a person. (b) A lawyer shall not present, participate in presenting, or threaten to present: (1) criminal or disciplinary charges solely to gain an advantage in a civil matter.

I then verbally explained to Lori Ordiway the contents and the important aspects of the document as it applied to her arguments of her case (and my subsequent testimony), including:

1. The Trace Evidence Lab and offices of the crime lab were discovered to be contaminated
2. with blood (evidence of an inept SWIFS Management at maintaining the integrity of the evidence inside the crime lab). The document does not state the root cause of the blood contamination and that blood contamination still occurs within the lab uncontrollably. The document only states when blood contamination was first reported by the analysts, and not when it first occurred. This suggests that blood contamination within the lab could have been occurring over an extended period of time and that thousands of evidence items could have been contaminated prior to the discovery. The document does not state that evidence examined in the lab PRIOR to the date of discovery of blood contamination must be subjected to DNA analysis to ascertain if blood contamination in the lab has been occurring for an extended period of time (on a large number of evidence items)i.e., a retroactive examination. The document does not state that a particular course of action is initiated in the event contamination is discovered within the "monitoring" time-frame. All evidence examined within the "monitoring" time-frame in which blood contamination in the lab is found must be subjected to DNA analysis to ascertain whose blood has contaminated the lab during this time-frame (and possibly other evidence items). The term "remediated" is not defined within the CAR. Dr. Tim Sliter (Chief of the Physical Evidence Section at SWIFS) is the responsible individual listed for initiating and completing the CAR. He signed and dated the document when the actions described within were completed. The document has a 16 month time-lapse between being initiated (by Dr. Tim Sliter on 07/16/2007) and completed by other superiors at SWIFS (signed 11/25/2008.) Because this CAR was incomplete prior to 11/25/2008, any PIA-Open Records Request for this CAR by Criminal Defense Attorneys and Prosecutors prior to this date would have gone unfulfilled (The absence of this document suggests the absence of contamination in the lab.) Per my PIA-Open Records Request for "...All Corrective Action Requests ("CAR") forms from 2001-2009...", no other CARs pertaining to blood contamination in the lab were received from SWIFS. This suggests that either no other CARs were initiated and completed when "...Trace levels of blood are occasionally detected and remediated...", or the documents were never sent to me (violating the Public Information Act). My name is not associated with the document. However, I was employed at SWIFS as an analyst during the time period that the document was open (I was employed from March 2008 to May 2009.)

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And most importantly... 11. The document was not initiated in July 2007. The document was created in November 2008 and backdated to July 2007 by Dr. Tim Sliter. Factually, SWIFS Quality Manager Karen Young did not begin employment at SWIFS until the Fall of 2008. Therefore, her name would not be printed at the bottom of the page. Moreover, the blank form of the document (v2.4 printed at the bottom of the page) was not created until November 1, 2008. The blank form for CAR documents initiated before November 1, 2008 are formatted differently. Because all members of the SWIFS Executive Committee signed

and dated this document on 11/25/2008, this is conclusive evidence of fraud perpetrated by the entire Management at SWIFS. Attorney Lori Ordiway subsequently photocopied and presented the document to Attorney David Alex to which I fully expected Attorney Lori Ordiway to communicate the fraudulent nature of the document to Attorney David Alex. (Dr. Tim Sliter, Chief of Physical Evidence at SWIFS and the author of the document CAR #07-007, was acting Expert Consult for Attorney David Alex and therefore not required to testify at the criminal proceeding.) Attorney Raul Loya was also fully aware of the contents of the document but wanted to save the damaging information for the forthcoming civil proceedings. (My Attorney Raul Loya was not present Monday when I presented the document to Attorney Lori Ordiway.) Because Attorney Raul Loya was not in attendance and unavailable to assist me with a testimonial strategy, under the advice of a court-appointed Public Defender I was forced to exercise my Fifth Amendment Rights to the disappointment of the court. (I was threatened by the judge with contempt of court if I did not participate with testimony.) Attorney David Alex subsequently was prepared to grant me Use Immunity (see attached) in exchange for my testimony for the next day. I, of course, wanted to refuse Use Immunity because the allegations it presented were completely false. In my opinion, accepting Use Immunity is tantamount to admission to the criminal activity described whereby testimonial immunity is needed (ironically, in this case, tampering with a government document). That is, if I committed no crime then I would not need immunity. It also reveals Attorney David Alexs implied intent to threaten to pursue frivolous3 criminal charges against me for alleged illegal actions I performed while employed with the crime lab if I did not accept the Use Immunity (or if Use Immunity was never presented as an option). Arguably, these criminal charges against me would be in retaliation for the pending civil litigation against the crime lab because if there was true intent to pursue criminal charges against me by Attorney David Alex (and Dallas County), it would have occurred at a time well before the on-going criminal proceeding. Inasmuch as I do not believe that Attorney David Alex had any intent to follow through with criminal charges against me4 (should I admit to an alleged criminal act during testimony), I am of the opinion that his grant of Use Immunity was only used as a means to extort5 my testimony in the criminal proceedings in order to gain information for the pending civil proceedings to the advantage of the absence of participation by my civil Attorney Raul Loya.

Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.01 Meritorious Claims and Contentions A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless the lawyer reasonably believes that there is a basis for doing so that is not frivolous. Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 4.01 Truthfulness in Statements to Others In the course of representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly: (a) make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person. Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 8.04 Misconduct (a) A lawyer shall not: (1) violate these rules, knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another, whether or not such violation occurred in the course of a client-lawyer relationship; (2) commit a serious crime or commit any other criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyers honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects; (3) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;

However, for reasons unexplained to me by any of the Attorneys, I was forced to accept Use Immunity from Attorney David Alex and proceed with witness testimony. Tuesday December 22, 2009 and Wednesday December 23, 2009 Attorney David Alex repeatedly badgered me for all documents that I reviewed prior to testimony which necessarily included documents related to the upcoming civil proceedings and unrelated to the criminal proceedings. Inasmuch as I had very little time to review documents and crime labrelated material and Attorney David Alex had all the crime lab documents related to my employment history (in addition to crime lab operating policies and procedures), he seemed visibly upset at my perceived unwillingness to provide total memory recall for events in the lab during testimony. It is unknown if Attorney Lori Ordiway was provided a copy of these same documents for her defense. During my testimony (while under Use Immunity given by Attorney David Alex), he made several references to supposedly illegal notations I made in a notebook from the crime lab. Unfamiliar with the policies and procedures of the crime lab, Attorney Lori Ordiway made little to no attempt at objecting to the irrelevant line of questioning, nor did she present a counter argument by referring to the crime labs Quality Assurance Manual for the Forensic Biology Unit containing the policies and procedures which I provided to both Attorney Lori Ordiway and Attorney David Alex. (This is the only document I had time to review prior to testimony.) Also during my testimony, Attorney David Alex proceeded to use the fraudulent information in the SWIFS CAR #07-007 document (the date: July 2007) to prevent me from providing an opinion on the contents of the document stating that I was not employed at the crime lab in 2007; therefore, I would have no knowledge of the events described in the document. Attorney David Alex made no mention of the fact that I was actually employed at the crime lab prior to, and after, the date 11/25/2008 that was signed at the bottom of the document 6 times by the Executive Committee of SWIFS (the closing date of the document). Attorney David Alex also did not mention that the document had been fraudulently backdated by his Expert Consult Dr. Tim Sliter. Strangely, Attorney Lori Ordiway made no attempt to object or correct the deliberate oversight of Attorney David Alex concerning SWIFS CAR #07-007 document during his cross-examination6. It is unknown if this same document was used during the subsequent expert witness testimony (in
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Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.03. Candor Toward a Tribunal (a) A lawyer shall not knowingly: (1) make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal; (2) fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer; (3) fail to disclose to the tribunal legal authority in the controlling jurisdiction known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to the position of the client and not disclosed by opposing counsel; or (4) offer or use evidence that the lawyer knows to be false. ... (c) If a lawyer, the lawyers client, or a witness called by the lawyer, has offered or used material evidence and the lawyer comes to know of its falsity, the lawyer shall make a reasonable effort to persuade the client to authorize the lawyer to correct or withdraw the false evidence. If those efforts are unsuccessful, the lawyer shall take other reasonable remedial measures, including, if necessary, disclosure of the falsehood to the tribunal. (d) A lawyer who represents a client in an adjudicatory proceeding and who knows that a person intends to engage, is engaging, or has engaged in criminal or fraudulent conduct related to the proceeding, shall take reasonable remedial measures, including, if necessary, disclosure of the falsehood to the tribunal.

favor of Attorney David Alex) of Dr. Stacy McDonald, the Deputy Chief of Physical Evidence at SWIFS (subordinate to Dr. Tim Sliter). Also during my testimony, opposing Attorney David Alex suggested the existence of a secret audio recording of an interview occurring on March 9, 2009, between me and Investigator for the Dallas County DAs Office, Jim Hammond, concerning the poor scientific practices occurring within the lab. Many details of the secretly recorded conversation were discussed in the trial. Because Attorney Lori Ordiway made no attempt to corroborate or acknowledge the existence of the audio recording, Im of the opinion that neither this audio recording nor the notes from the interview were made available to Attorney Lori Ordiway or the defendants previous attorneys7, a clear violation of Brady Rules8. Attorney David Alex also questioned me about information from my online social network Facebook account. Unbeknownst to the ill-prepared Attorney Lori Ordiway, who, again, did not object to the irrelevant nature of the questioning, my Facebook account had privacy settings such that only Friends had my permission to access certain information in my Facebook account such as status updates. Attorney David Alex was not a Friend who I had previously given permission to access my Facebook profile. Therefore, he could only have accessed my Facebook information by posing as a Friend through a third party (who already was a Friend), or otherwise deceptively gained the information by deceitful practices through a third party. The situation is similar to that addressed in a report written by the Philadelphia Bar Association9: Excerpts from...
THE PHILADELPHIA BAR ASSOCIATION, PROFESSIONAL GUIDANCE COMMITTEE, Opinion 2009-02, (March 2009) [footnotes added to reflect analogous Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, 06.01.2005] ... During the course of the deposition, the witness [not a party to the litigation] revealed that she has Facebook and Myspace accounts... ... Access to the pages of the user is limited to persons who obtain the users permission, which permission is obtained after the user is approached on line by the person seeking access... ... The inquirer [the oppositions lawyer] believes that the pages maintained by the witness may contain information relevant to the matter in which the witness was deposed, and that could be used to impeach the witnesss testimony should she testify at trial. The inquirer did not ask the witness to reveal the contents of her pages, either by permitting access to them on line or otherwise. He has, however, either himself or through agents, visited Facebook and Myspace and attempted to access both accounts. When that was done, it was found that access to the pages can be obtained only by the witnesss permission... ... The inquirer proposes to ask a third person, someone whose name the witness will not recognize, to go to the Facebook and Myspace websites, contact the witness and seek to friend her, to obtain access to the information on the pages. The third person would state
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Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.09. Special Responsibilities of a Prosecutor ... (d) timely disclose to the defense all evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense, and, in connection with sentencing, disclose to the defense and tribunal all unprivileged mitigating information known to the prosecutor, except when the prosecutor is relieved of this responsibility by a protective order of the tribunal.
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Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). Full text can be found at http://uponfurtherreview.philadelphiabar.org/page/Article?articleID=3e3477ea-c75b-4a34-abb5-885c98faa3c3

only truthful information, for example, his or her true name, but would not reveal that he or she is affiliated with the lawyer or the true purpose for which he or she is seeking access, namely, to provide the information posted on the pages to a lawyer for possible use antagonistic to the witness. If the witness allows access, the third person would then provide the information posted on the pages to the inquirer who would evaluate it for possible use in the litigation... ... Several Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct (the Rules) are implicated in this inquiry.
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Rule 5.3. Responsibilities Regarding Nonlawyer Assistants provides in part that, With respect to a nonlawyer employed or retained by or associated with a lawyer:... ... (c) a lawyer shall be responsible for conduct of such a person that would be a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct if engaged in by a lawyer if: (1) the lawyer orders or, with the knowledge of the specific conduct, ratifies the conduct involved; The fact that the actual interaction with the witness would be undertaken by a third party who, the committee assumes, is not a lawyer does not insulate the inquirer from ethical responsibility for the conduct...he is responsible for the conduct under the Rules even if he is not himself engaging in the actual conduct that may violate a rule...
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Rule 8.4. Misconduct provides in part that, It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to: (a) violate or attempt to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another; ... (c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;

Turning to the ethical substance of the inquiry, the Committee believes that the proposed course of conduct contemplated by the inquirer would violate Rule 8.4(c) because the planned communication by the third party with the witness is deceptive. It omits a highly material fact, namely, that the third party who asks to be allowed access to the witnesss pages is doing so only because he or she is intent on obtaining information and sharing it with a lawyer for use in a lawsuit to impeach the testimony of the witness.
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Rule 4.1. Truthfulness in Statements to Others provides in part that, In the course of representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly: (a) make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person;

The Committee believes that in addition to violating Rule 8.4c, the proposed conduct constitutes the making of a false statement of material fact to the witness and therefore
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Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, 5.03 Rules Regarding Nonlawyer Assistants (a) a lawyer having direct supervisory authority over the nonlawyer shall make reasonable efforts with the professional obligations of the lawyer; (b) a lawyer shall be subject to discipline for the conduct of such a person that would be a violation of these rules if engaged in by a lawyer if: (1) the lawyer orders, encourages, or permits the conduct involved; Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, 8.04 Misconduct (a) A lawyer shall not: (1) violate these rules, knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another, whether or not such violation occurred in the course of a client-lawyer relationship; (3) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation; Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, 4.01 Truthfulness in Statements to Others In the course of representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly: (a) make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person;

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violates Rule 4.1 as well. Furthermore, since the violative conduct would be done through the acts of another third party, this would also be a violation of Rule 8.4a. Even noble motive does not warrant departure from the rules of Professional Conduct...We reaffirm that members of our profession must adhere to the highest moral and ethical standards. Those standards apply regardless of motive. Purposeful deception by an attorney licensed in our state is intolerable, even when undertaken as a part of attempting to secure the surrender of a murder suspect. . . . Until a sufficiently compelling scenario presents itself and convinces us our interpretation of Colo. RPC 8.4(c) is too rigid, we stand resolute against any suggestion that licensed attorneys in our state may deceive or lie or misrepresent, regardless of their reasons for doing so. People v. Pautler, 47 P. 3d 1175 (Colo. 2002).

Again, the irrelevant nature of the questioning by Attorney David Alex regarding my Facebook account during my testimony in the criminal proceeding means that the attempt to gain information was only for the purpose of an impeachment or character defamation strategy for the pending civil litigation. Tuesday January 12, 2010 Attorney David Alex continued to act unethically and unprofessionally after the criminal trial by slandering me with misleading statements and derogatory remarks to news reporter Yamil Berard of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram13,14 such as "...He could not pass the training program for a forensic scientist," said David Alex, administrative chief in the Dallas County district attorneys office. "The allegations he was lodging were unfounded primarily because he was not even qualified to make those allegations... and ...county officials said, the whistle-blower offered to retract his complaint and settle the case for $250,000...(Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas Forensic Science Commission releases details about allegations of critical lapses at crime labs, January 12, 2010 see attached.) No other party related to either the criminal or civil proceedings released statements to the press regarding the reports of the alleged scientific misconduct occurring within the crime lab. CONCLUSION The civil adjudicative process is primarily designed for the settlement of disputes between parties, while the criminal process is designed for the protection of society as a whole. Threatening to use, or using, the criminal process to coerce adjustment of private civil claims or controversies is a subversion of that process. Further, the person against whom the criminal process is so misused may be deterred from asserting his legal rights and thus the usefulness of the civil process in
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Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.07. Trial Publicity (a) A lawyer who is participating or who has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicatory proceeding. Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 4.1 Truthfulness in Statements to Others In the course of representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly: (a) make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person; or (b) fail to disclose a material fact to a third person when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act by a client, unless disclosure is prohibited by Rule 1.6.

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settling private disputes is impaired. As in all cases of abuse of judicial process, the improper use of criminal process tends to diminish public confidence in our legal system15. Inasmuch as a single questionable ethics violation by a single attorney would have compromised constitutional rights to due process and a fair civil and criminal proceeding, the collective actions of the ethically bankrupt Attorneys Raul Loya, Lori Ordiway, and David Alex (see attached complaints) most certainly have destroyed any chances of receiving a fair trial and is, by definition, a corruption of justice.

15

American Bar Association Model Code of Professional Responsibility (1983), EC 7-21.