Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse — Unless You Are the Law?

Imagine that later this evening you are caught breaking the law. Nothing of the grand theft auto variety, but a law nonetheless. Only you don't know it's law. You thought what you were doing was just dandy until the police picked you up. If you explain this to a police, or a judge, what do you imagine will happen? Well it's likely they won't believe you, but even more importantly, they likely won't care. Ignorance of the law, they'll say, is no excuse. 

Keep all that in mind as you consider yesterday's news that Tennessee's Attorney General Herbert Slatery has concluded Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk indeed broke the law, but that he didn't know he broke the law, and won't be prosecuted.

Back in February, a little more than five months after Funk was sworn in as the city's new DA, News Channel 5's Phil Williams reported that Funk had accepted a job with the state as a special prosecutor before he was sworn in, allowing him to qualify for a sweeter pension plan. He received pay, and benefits for he and his family, as a part-time prosecutor for the state while still defending clients. Following Williams' report, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation was called upon to investigate the situation. 

And Tuesday, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery released a report confirming the details Williams had reported. You can read it all here, but this was Slatery's conclusion:

Mr. Funk's part-time employment with the Conference was designed to give him a financial benefit to which he otherwise would not have been entitled when he assumed elected office on September 1, 2014, and he received pension, salary, and health insurance benefits for virtually no work. Moreover, his simultaneous defense of criminal cases violated State law related to the part-time employment of attomeys by the Conference.

However, Mr. Funk has maintained that he was unaware of the statutory restrictions applicable to his Conference employment and that he justifiably relied on the advice of Conference personnel with respect to the position requirements, his ongoing criminal defense practice, and the submission of all necessary and proper employment paperwork relative to his position there. This consideration mitigates to some extent Mr. Funk's culpability in the matter. This Office is satisfied that the remedial actions to be taken by Mr. Funk will indemnify the State for its financial loss, and institutional controls implemented by the Conference, which will be substantiated by a future Comptroller audit, should prevent the recurrence of similar circumstances.

In a statement of his own, Funk offered his own explanation, saying that his arrangement should be seen in the context of the state District Attorneys General Conference's decade-plus practice of hiring criminal defense attorney's to the position he briefly held. 

"I understand that District Attorneys are held to a higher standard," he concluded. "I regret that this issue has given the impression that I was afforded an opportunity not afforded to others."

Pith asked Funk's office Wednesday if there wasn't a double standard at work here. Surely, we said, the DA's office has — or will — prosecute a defendant who claims to have unknowingly broken the law and, maybe, point to all the other people who have done the same thing. So, if DA's are to be held to a higher standard, then what gives? 

We were referred to Funk's original statement.