Board of Bar Overseers BOARD OF BAR OVERSEERS IN RE: FRANCIS W. BLOOM Case No.: 93-78BD BBO File No.: Name: IN RE: FRANCIS W. BLOOM Decision Date: December 16, 1993 MEMORANDUM OF DECISION A hearing committee of the Board of Bar Overseers recommended to the Board that it propose to this court that the attorney be publicly censured. The Board unanimously agreed with that recommendation and filed an information requesting that relief. I fully concur that a public censure is appropriate. Bar counsel's recommendation of a private censure is unexplained on the record and generally inexplicable. The attorney's conduct in a particular matter while he was an Assistant District Attorney in Hampden County was outrageous. He sought to trick two persons into confessing to a crime by manufacturing and presenting to them a false confession of a third person that implicated the two in a crime. The attorney, as a witness, signed his name to the false confession. A police officer's signature was forged on the fabricated confession. Neither suspect confessed. Each denied involvement in the crime. Neither was charged. The fabricated confession (without any explanation) was left in the file of the person to whom the fabricated confession was attributed. Another prosecutor found the confession and Page 2 planned to use it at a trial of the "confessor" until she discovered its falsity. Defense counsel for the "confessor" was advised of the fraudulent document and sought to have charges against his client dismissed on the ground of prosecutorial misconduct. The attempt failed because the defendant made no showing of prejudice. A prosecutor's manufacturing evidence and representing it as true is a serious misstep. Fraudulent attempts to induce confessions are reprehensible. The integrity of the Commonwealth's criminal justice system is put in question by conduct of this nature. Zeal for convictions blinded the duty to do justice. Only because harm came neither to the two suspects who were shown the fabricated confession nor to the "confessor" is discipline as mild as a public censure warranted in this proceeding. A judgment of public censure shall be entered. Herbert P. Wilkins Associate Justice December 16, 1993 NO. 93-78BD IN RE: FRANCIS W. BLOOM JUDGMENT This matter came before the Court, Wilkins, J., presiding, on an Information and Record of Proceedings filed on November 18, 1993. It is ORDERED and ADJUDGED in accordance with the Memorandum © 2016, Social Law Library. All Rights Reserved. Page 1 of 2 Board of Bar Overseers of Decision entered on December 16, 1993 that Francis W. Bloom be and hereby is publicly censured. Dated at Boston, Massachusetts, this day of December, 1993. By the Court, (Wilkins, J.) Richard J. Rouse Clerk End Of Decision © 2016, Social Law Library. All Rights Reserved. Page 2 of 2