State panel recommends three-year suspension for former Boone County prosecutor
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ) -
A legal ethics panel asked that a former assistant Boone County prosecutor be suspended for three years.
The Disciplinary Hearing Panel wrote on Oct. 26 that Morley Swingle should be banned from practicing law in Missouri indefinitely, with the earliest chance at applying for reinstatement coming in three years.
Swingle admitted to inappropriate relationships he had with a suspect in a murder case and the girlfriend of a homicide victim while he worked for office. Swingle gave the suspect work and housing recommendations after taking a plea agreement in the case. He also admitted to sending flirtatious text messages with the girlfriend of a Dec. 2020 killing in Columbia.
The panel of Brandon Greer, Joseph Rigler and Sidney Dulles upped the two-suspension the state and Swingle agreed to at the hearing.
"The panel recognizes that when a 'minister of justice'...uses the power and dignity of the State of Missouri for his or her personal reasons, it gives the public the impression that not everyone is equal under the law and those who enjoy a personal relationship with a prosecutor also enjoy benefits that others do not receive," the panel wrote. "If the legal system is to be an intellectually honest profession, the public must see that a 'minister of justice' will be held to the same standards to which he would hold those he prosecutes, and that justice is blind to whom it is applied and everyone (including a 'minister of justice') is equal under the law and treated the same regardless of position."
The state admonished Swingle in 2011 for similar behavior when he was the elected Cape Gireardeau County prosecutor. Swingle said at the hearing he regretted his actions.
Swingle's boss, then-prosecutor Dan Knight, asked for Swingle's resignation when he found out about Swingle's behavior in the murder case in 2021. The panel said Swingle's behavior created the risk of mistrials for not quickly disclosing his conflict of interest.
"His embarrassment prevented him from promptly disclosing his personal interests in representing the State and in assuring both actual and apparent fairness," the panel wrote.
Swingle will receive the suspension if both he and the state agree to the recommendation. If either side rejects it, the case will go to the Supreme Court of Missouri for argument.
