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Convicted Felon Orrock Wants to Practice Law, Alleviate Workforce Shortage

Tax cheat and Indian-puncher Kenneth Orrock wants to be a lawyer again. In his bid for readmission to the South Dakota bar, heard yesterday by the state Supreme Court, Orrock enlisted well-connected lawyer Jom Sword to speak to his character and growth:

Longtime Fall River County attorney Jim Sword backed Orrock during the hearing, testifying to the quality of his work as an assistant and his growth as a person since the 2017 case commenced.

He’s an active member of his church and works with veterans, for example, in spite of being ostracized by many of his fellow veterans and attorneys after his felony crimes came to light.

“This is a story of resilience,” said Sword, who has agreed to act as Orrock’s supervisory lawyer, should the Supreme Court agree to the disciplinary board’s terms [John Hult, “Former Lawyer with Felony Conviction Asks Supreme Court for Reinstatement,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2023.08.30].

The state bar disciplinary board has recommended letting Orrock practice criminal law if he can pass the bar exam again. Orrock says the shortage of lawyers is a good reason to let him back into the bar:

His ability to act as a court-appointed attorney, however, could help relieve the burden caused in the Rapid City area by a dearth of criminal lawyers.

“Many of the court appointed attorneys that I’ve been able to speak to in the last several months have just been overwhelmed,” Orrock said. “As a matter of fact, one told me last week he’s stopping to take them because he can’t do it any more” [Hult, 2023.08.30].

The Supreme Court will decide whether to let Orrock resume limited lawyerly work later this year. But Orrock’s pitch to fill the gap in Rapid City shows the danger our workforce shortage creates of lowering our standards and letting individuals of dubious character make money doing important work.

23 Comments

  1. larry kurtz 2023-08-31 09:15

    A lawyer was playing golf when he got hit by a ball. When the player came over looking for the ball, the lawyer said “I’m a lawyer, and this will cost you $5,000.” “I’m sorry,” said the golfer, “But I did say ‘fore’.” “I’ll take it,” said the lawyer.

    Garrison Keillor

  2. larry kurtz 2023-08-31 09:19

    So a young lawyer meets the devil at a bar association convention and the devil says, “Listen, if you give me your soul….and give me the souls of everyone in your family…. I’ll make you a full partner in your firm.” And the young lawyer says, “So…. What’s the catch?”

  3. All Mammal 2023-08-31 10:20

    What a goddamn pos little douche. He should NEVER practice law anywhere. Just like the man he assaulted, I say, “F— you. Little B—.” To that guy.

  4. Mike Lee Zitterich 2023-08-31 11:27

    This is God’s work, this is his will, and he has placed this man on this planet, to set an example, of what what it means to repent, forgive others of their trespasses, and to forgive people of their sins. Not only did God send his only son to come down from Heaven to take away our sins, Jesus often said himself, God is a merciful god, and that he loves all of us equally. This man served his time, for his crime, he has fought through the sanctions, the penalties, and headaches, and accepted the fact that he screwed up. If God can forgive us of our crimes, and sins, so can I do the same. We are a “State of People” of whom took our oath to God, the Lord Almighty, and of which placed that God in our Constitution itself. Now, he has faced his demons, met with his maker, and the Lord God is leading all of us down a proper pathway.

  5. larry kurtz 2023-08-31 11:51

    Entheogen is a term derived from two words of ancient Greek that effectively translates to English as “the god within.”

    Paul of Tarsus was hung over and had been smoking opium when he was overcome. Jesus of Nazareth had visions after fasting. The Prophet Muhammad is believed to have enjoyed hashish. Joseph Smith was 18, drunkenly praying that God would forgive him for sins of debauchery when he heard voices. Wovoka witnessed a solar eclipse on peyote that compelled a generation of Ghost Dancers. As a result of ingesting psychoactive fungi Heȟáka Sápa or Nicholas Black Elk rejected catholicism and returned to Lakota ways after he realized the Roman Church was committing crimes against his people.

    Metanoia, visions, angels, the Holy Spirit–God’s work on Earth, right? Maybe it’s all in your head.

    Former NPR religion correspondent, Barbara Bradley Hagerty, went looking for the “God Spot,” that place in the human brain that receives the Holy Spirit then compiled her results in a book she called The Fingerprints of God where she describes Temporal Lobe Epilepsy with a scientist’s fascination in exquisite detail.

  6. jerry 2023-08-31 12:39

    Fani Willis should interview the little crook along with the rest of the dozens of “lawyers” that tried to overturn democracy. There really is no need for attorney’s. I think that they all should be public servants and under the guidance of the federal government. They should never ever be allowed to have any power whatsoever, like a clerk. Laws should be written in the Constitution that a normal person can read and understand (of course, that leaves mikey z. tossed to the curb as his maw even says he’s nuts).

    Oglala Lakota County should demand their own county and not be housed in the same den of vipers that exist in Fail River. Todd County as well, time to make their governments real in the eyes of all.

  7. cibvet 2023-08-31 12:57

    CAH– If “dubious character” is the only strike against Orrock, then not only will he get his law license back, but he will eventually
    be elected to SD state legislature with the rest of the dubious characters.

  8. DaveFN 2023-08-31 20:12

    larry kurtz

    There you go again with your hare-braned notions.

    The etymology of the constructed word “entheogen” derived naively from the Greek words meaning “God within” (the word was first proposed by Dr. David E. Nichols, professor at Purdue University — who worked with Alexander Shulgin—and my PhD advisor) has absolutely nothing to do with god as much as it has to do with a mind addled by an ingested pharmacologically-active substance that is for that reason under the illusion it is having a god experience. It’s an example of a drug-induced paranoia whereby a persecutory world fades from sight and a previously inaccessible world opens to view, other than for the fact that it’s an imaginary world only in the head, that private world itself being the hallmark of paranoia itself what with its signature of absolute certainty. (Does that resonate with yourself?) Hang around The Esalen Institut much?

    The notion Saul of Tarsus was taking opium is similarly sheer fabrication.

  9. DaveFN 2023-08-31 20:29

    If we don’t understand something—and no one really knows what knocked Saul off his ass on the road to Damascus—fabricate an explanatory heuristic—drug-induced or religious makes little difference– to account for it.

    Like you do when you attribute gender euphoria to chemicals in the environment having known estrogenic properties in fish embryoes—even though what may have effects on the physical organism have no proven translation of effect on the human mind (by which later I refer to psyche, and not the brain).

    Really clever heuristics emerge from the best of neurotics.

  10. Dicta 2023-08-31 20:48

    I am struggling to deal with the cognitive dissonance of people discussing “making stuff up” in the context of organized religion. That’s a feature of the system, not a bug.

  11. larry kurtz 2023-08-31 21:05

    Hey, Dave? You and Miranda Gohn need to hook up.

  12. larry kurtz 2023-08-31 21:12

    But Miranda Gohn can’t post here under its real name, can they, Cory?

  13. larry kurtz 2023-08-31 21:17

    Why Dave, Miranda? Furry Freak Brothers?

  14. larry kurtz 2023-08-31 21:44

    This isn’t rocket science. Even Pat Powers got stiffed by this guy so that’s good.

  15. Bob Newland 2023-08-31 21:44

    MikeyZ, you might be right. On the other hand, “this man” might be a butthole.

  16. grudznick 2023-08-31 22:49

    Mr. Orrock might have stiffed young Mr. Powers, but he never stiffed grudznick. Know why? He knew he could get away with stiffing young Mr. Powers, but he knew he could not get away with stiffing grudznick. Like my old friend Bill used to say…just sayin…

  17. grudznick 2023-08-31 22:52

    Mr. Zitterich, there is no god. Your god drowned in a bowl of cereal.
    Read the handbook of the Conservatives with Common Sense.

  18. leslie 2023-08-31 23:39

    god’s work? like trump?

  19. DaveFN 2023-09-01 01:14

    Some weird s___t discourse going on in DFP comments.

    Anyone out of the loop should count themselves fortunate.

  20. DaveFN 2023-09-01 01:17

    Neurotic elucidations never cease.

  21. DaveFN 2023-09-01 01:19

    Elucubrations don’t either

  22. Richard Schriever 2023-09-01 12:38

    Zitterich, like any other human, you know NO THING other to the activities of your own brain’s cells. Not one thing. That brain may try to tell itself (you) it is “in contact” with a supreme being, but can you believe the lying little mass of self-contorted pathways?

  23. Richard Schriever 2023-09-01 12:47

    Dave FN, the “psyche” is nothing more to a conglomeration of habitualized patterns of signal travel within the neurologic pathways of the physical brain. I’ll give you an example from my work-life. Set up a cone taper on the right-hand side of a road and a sign that says one-lane road ahead. Many a driver (not all) approaching from the two-;lane end of that taper will move to the left lane, and then, EVEN WHEN LED BY A PILOT CAR with the sign “Follow Me” on top, move back to the right lane – BECAUSE – their “personality” tells them, there’s “something wrong” with driving in the left lane. I see it every day.

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