98-8.

• Case Date: August 31, 1998
• Court: Kansas

Kansas Ethics Opinion 1998. 98-8. August 31, 1998KBA Legal Ethics Opinion No. 98-8August 31, 1998 TOPIC: County Attorneys; appearance of impropriety; charitable fundraising DIGEST: The appearance of impropriety rule applicable to "public officials" means county attorneys and prosecutors should not engage in directly soliciting funds from the public for private charities outside of the prosecutorial discretion grounded on statutory diversion authority, if the purpose of seeking the prosecutor's involvement was the use of the prosecutor's office for fundraising purposes. Exceptions include the prosecutor as the "roastee" at a fundraising event or fundraising activities involving the prosecutor as a citizen and not as a prosecutor, such as helping children sell girl scout cookies. Date of Request: June 17, 1998 Reference: MRPC 8.4 Boilerplate FACTS Requesting counsel is a county attorney in a rural county. He is asked to solicit funds for various charitable organizations. While he recognizes that such solicitations are improper of people who have recently been prosecuted, are under investigation or stand a good chance of being prosecuted in the near future based on such attorney's knowledge of ongoing investigations or the current activities of the target or his associates, he is concerned that the groups contacting him do so solely because he is the county attorney. QUESTIONS Are there ethical considerations against the county attorney soliciting money for charitable causes? ANALYSIS We find very little case law or ethics guidance to help our analysis. One recent KBA ethics opinion held that so long as basic anti-discrimination practices are followed and the result does not infringe on church-state entanglement problems, the Model Rules do not regulate whether a county attorney, using such attorney's prosecutorial discretion, can reduce traffic tickets to nonmoving violations in return for a charitable contribution. [1] Attorney General Bob Stephan made a similar conclusion in an attorney general opinion that diversion agreements could be conditioned on a monetary contribution to charity. The General cautioned, "However, we strongly caution prosecutors to make every effort to ensure that there is no appearance of favoritism or prejudice. We recommend that the district attorney should adopt explicit policies and guidelines regarding...