A South Carolina attorney has been suspended from practicing law after making incendiary Facebook posts, including one about George Floyd’s murder, sparked complaints.
Lawyer David Paul Traywick was handed a six-month suspension and ordered to take a diversity class earlier this month by the state Supreme Court, The State newspaper reported.
The attorney will also have to undergo an anger management assessment with a licensed therapist before his license is reinstated, the outlet reported.
The Office of Disciplinary Counsel had received complaints from 46 different people about Traywick’s Facebook posts, one of which came days after a police officer killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck in Minnesota.
“Here’s how much that (expletive) life actually mattered: Stock futures up. Markets moved higher Monday and Tuesday. (Expletive) you. Unfriend me,” the post said, the outlet reported.
The justices said post could have intensified racial conflict, not just among his Facebook friends but in all of Charleston and elsewhere.
Traywick’s posts were “intended to incite and had the effect of inciting, gender and race-based conflict beyond the scope of the conversation Respondent would otherwise have with his Facebook ‘friends,’” the justices wrote in their unanimous opinion.
The justices said his posts “tended to bring the legal profession into disrepute” and violated the Lawyer’s Oath, which requires lawyers to “maintain the dignity of the legal system.
With Post wires