United States v. William Wunsch Beverly Wunsch Teri Lee Sowers, and Frank L. Swan

In this case we are called upon to determine whether a male attorney was properly sanctioned by the district court for displaying gender bias in a letter sent to a female attorney following the male attorney’s disqualification from the underlying action. We reverse.

FACTS AND PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

This matter arose during the course of a criminal tax prosecution brought by the United States against three defendants, William and Beverly Wunseh and their daughter, Teri Sowers. Shortly after Sowers’s arrest by federal agents on March 18, 1993, Frank Swan telephoned Assistant United States Attorney Elana Artson, counsel for the United States. Swan, who identified himself as counsel for Sowers, asked about the charges pending against his client and the conditions for her release. Swan also told Artson that he would be unable to attend Sowers’s bail hearing that afternoon, but would send another attorney, Gerald Wilson, in his stead.

On March 24, 1993, Artson moved to disqualify Swan and co-counsel Wilson, arguing that their representation of both Sowers and the Wunsches (who were at that time targets of a grand jury investigation and likely defendants in an anticipated superseding…