Lawyers are meant to advise. But, one Nashville lawyer’s most recent advisement to a woman has lost him his practicing license for an entire year.
In 2017, Winston B. Sitton advised a Facebook friend of his, a woman who had been a victim of domestic violence, on how to murder her husband and get away with it.
According to Daily Mail, Sitton described the unnamed woman as an “‘a battered, disabled mother’ who was ‘savagely’ beaten in a restaurant in front of their son.”
Sitton recommended the woman somehow get her ex-husband inside of the house and shoot him dead. If he is shot dead inside, she had a better chance of claiming self-defense in the use of ‘deadly force.’
His comments were discovered after screenshots of this conversation were sent to the Board of Professional Responsibility, which referred the matter to the state’s Supreme Court.
It was later discovered the woman’s ex took and turned over the screenshots.
Sitton defended his remarks unapologetically, calling them a joke and part of his “dark humor.” However, the Tennessee Supreme Court still suspended his license for a year, with three years probation.
The harsher sentence is due to the Supreme Court as they deemed the original 60 days as too”lenient.”
Justice Holly Kirby called this a “‘cautionary tale on the ethical problems that can befall lawyers on social media’ and urged them to consider posts on social media ‘live ammunition.'”
Sitton, a graduate of The University of Virginia School of Law, is the founder of Sitton & Associates.
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