The Sham Advocate: Unqualified to Prosecute
Assistant District Attorney Alex Benitez Fails Bar Exam
A prosecutor's primary responsibility is to seek justice on behalf of the community and uphold the rule of law. The "client" of a prosecutor is the public. “We the people” are the District Attorney’s client, and we are actively being deceived.
As a prosecutor, District Attorney Melissa Handke, has a fundamental obligation to serve the public interest by upholding justice, ensuring the integrity of legal proceedings, and seeking the truth. Instead, she has been obscuring the truth from the public, and defrauding her client [the public] by allowing the people to be represented by a prosecutor who lacks the statutory qualifications to hold the position.
“Assistant District Attorney” Not Admitted to the Bar
It is clear that Alexis Benitez has bold aspirations for his future, confidently displaying “Future governor of the great state of Oklahoma” in the about section of his LinkedIn profile. A job that constituents desire be held by a person with strong ethical conviction.
It appears Benitez is already starting off on the wrong foot, by participating in district twenty’s “Carnival of Corruption” and deceptively holding himself out to the public as an Attorney.
Fresh out of college, he did not hesitate in accepting a job title he was not qualified for, nor the media exposure that came with it. He was featured [in this story] by KXII on August 7, 2023. Celebrating his role as “the newest assistant district attorney” under District Attorney Melissa Handke, appointed just four days prior.
Benitez only holds a limited license for “Legal Internship” with the Oklahoma Bar Association. That license was renewed on September 22, 2023, presumably due to his inability to pass the Oklahoma Bar Exam he sat for in July of 2023.
One can’t help but envision the comical parallels that come to mind similar to this [clip from the movie My Cousin Vinnie]:
Unfortunately, the reality is, unlike karate kid in the clip, “We the People” do not get to interview the prosecutors tasked with representing our interests as “the state” in criminal courts. Our only say is at the ballot box when it comes time to elect the District Attorney, and we are at their mercy to choose qualified assistant candidates. We can, and do, hold the expectation that elected officials will not misrepresent those qualifications to public.
The new District Attorney did not hesitate to put Benitez straight into the thick of her efforts to increase prosecutions in the district. Since August, he has been involved in the prosecution of over four hundred cases.
Oklahoma State Court Network [OSCN as of 11/10/2023] shows 442 records for Carter County where Alexis Benitez is listed on court records as “District Attorney”. Forty two of those records are criminal misdemeanor actions and seven are criminal felony actions.
A sample review of court minutes indicates Benitez has appeared in court, actively prosecuting cases, unsupervised, as recent as November 8, 2023.
Deceiving the Public
DA Handke has deceptively held Benitez out to the public [and possibly the court] as an Assistant District Attorney, despite him being unqualified.
The new district attorney comparatively allowed a nurse to preform surgery… unsupervised! The analogy is suitable, as lives are at stake in both scenarios.
Handke continues to advertise publicly that Benitez is an “attorney” on the official District 20 website, despite knowledge of his failed bar exam.
The deceptive advertising on the Official District 20 Website is likely a violation of Rule 5.6 of the legal intern program:
Benitez was unable to pass the Oklahoma Bar exam, necessary to lawfully maintain his position, yet continues to part Oklahomans from their liberties and freedom.
His actions have a direct consequence to the quality of of justice received by the community, and yet he has demonstrated, in his inability to pass the bar, that he is unqualified to be in such a position of power.
By failing to disclose Benitez’s bar status to the public, Handke deceived every constituent whom she was appointed to represent, while potentially violating Rule 3.7(C.) of the Legal Intern Program.
Unqualified Per Oklahoma Law
District Attorney Handke has allowed Benitez to represent her client, the people of District 20, in contradiction to the statutory requirement [O.S. 19 § 215.34(C)]. Oklahoma Title 19 - Counties and County Officers clearly states a law license is necessary. The obvious legislative intent of the statute being that prosecutors would be admitted to the bar prior to having the power to incarcerate Oklahomans.
“Each assistant district attorney shall” “have a license to practice law in the courts of record of this state at the time of appointment”.
In addition to violating state law, Oklahoma Bar Association ethics opinions are quite clear on the delegation of professional responsibility to law students. The position of Assistant District Attorney is the epitome of such delegation, as the position exists with the intent to delegate nearly all such responsibility.
“a lawyer cannot delegate his professional responsibility to a law student employed in his office”. - Ethics Opinion No. 260 [quoting Opinion 316]
A “Licensed Legal Intern” is Inappropriate.
Is the community expected to believe this is not a problem? When will it be a problem? At such a time that Benitez’s ineptness results in wrongful convictions? Or when his lack of knowledge about the law allows the guilty to go free due to a technicality?
Rule 1.1 of the Licensed Legal Internship Program expressly states the purpose of such licensing “is to provide supervised practical training in the practice of law, trial advocacy, and professional ethics to law students and to law graduates who have applied to take the first Oklahoma Bar Examination after graduation”.
The program is NOT meant to be used as a subversion for those unable to pass the bar exam, in order to practice as assistant district attorneys.
This is exactly what DA Handke has utilized the intern program for. It will be a scapegoat to deflect from her own poor judgement in administrating of one of the most corrupt prosecuting offices in Oklahoma.
It’s time the District Attorney’s office stops deceiving the public and starts being transparent and accountable. This is yet another incident of many that justifies the need for Oklahoma lawmakers to check the power of prosecutors.
Other Misconduct Endorsed
District Attorney Handke continues to endorse rampant prosecutorial misconduct occurring under her supervision with the continued employment of Johnston County Assistant District Attorney, Fern Smith, who is implicated in destroying evidence in a world famous wrongful conviction and was trained under the scandalous “Death Squad”. There continue to be reports of suborned perjury, witness tampering, and other unconstitutional conduct by ADA Smith including attempts to cover up misconduct inside the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office.
Just a year prior to this incident, Handke and her husband [former Carter County Undersheriff], came under public scrutiny, after a recording device was discovered in the Carter County Jail attorney/client room. In a response that many believe was an act of retaliation, Handke and her former boss [Craig Ladd] utilized private grand jury proceedings to have the whistleblower attorney indicted in an effort to discredit him. OSBI has yet to disclose their investigation results regarding the jail bug incident. Just recently DA Handke’s husband was caught on body cam acknowledging that he was “giving breaks” and “working with” apparent drug dealers.
The people of District 20 deserve better.