A State Bar of California judge has recommended a two-year suspension of the law license of a former San Francisco prosecutor who has three convictions for driving under the influence and who tried to use his badge to avoid arrest.
Marc Guillory was a San Francisco deputy district attorney from 2006 to 2012 and held a similar position in San Bernardino County for four years before that.
While in those two jobs, he had prosecuted at least 15 to 20 DUI cases and settled 100 others by 2007, according to the recommended ruling, issued Thursday by State Bar Court hearing judge Pat McElroy.
During his tenure as a San Francisco deputy district attorney, Guillory was convicted three times of misdemeanor DUI—in 2008, 2010 and 2012.
In each incident, he showed the arresting officer his deputy district attorney’s badge when asked for his driver’s license, according to the officers’ testimony at a six-day State Bar Court trial held before McElroy at the bar’s headquarters in San Francisco in November.
The officers said they interpreted Guillory’s action, which is known as “badging,” as a request for special treatment.
Before becoming a lawyer, Guillory had another conviction in 1999 for misdemeanor reckless driving with alcohol in his system. In that incident, according to the ruling, Guillory, after leaving a party where he drank beer, hit a disabled bus that was stopped with its lights flashing on the side of a street. His cousin, who was a passenger in his car, was killed.
Before being granted a law license, Guillory told a State Bar examiner that he would never drink and drive again, according to McElroy’s decision.
McElroy wrote, “Respondent’s repeated alcohol-related criminal conduct, which has spanned a period of 12 years or more, shows a wanton disregard for the safety of the public and abnegation by respondent of the duties that he owes to his fellow man.”
The judge also said Guillory’s attempt at “badging” to avoid prosecution was especially egregious.
“As a former DA who prosecuted DUIs, respondent is well aware of the wide swath of death, pain, grief, and untold physical and emotional injury that the drunk driver cuts across the roads of California and the rest of this country,” McElroy wrote.
The suspension will not be final until it is approved by the California Supreme Court.
Guillory, who now maintains a private law practice in Oakland, could not be reached for comment.
Julia Cheever, Bay City News
