You broke the rules, Mr. Peel, and now you have to go

Odds are you’ve never had to throw an unruly guest out of your house. However, if one got really drunk and started insulting everyone, or you caught the guest rifling through your wife’s jewelry box in the master bedroom, you might decide you had no alternative but to bounce the jerk.

How would you respond if the unwanted guest  protested? What if he said he hadn’t really done what you’d just seen him do, that it was all some kind of mistake, that he didn’t want to leave, that he was having a good time and wanted to stay?

You might be taken aback at first, but then you’d probably say something like: “That’s too bad, isn’t it? This is my house and I want you out of it.”

Or maybe: “You should have thought of that before you got vile and repulsive.”

There are recognized rules of proper behavior for house guests, and anyone who claims he doesn’t understand why he’s being ejected for a gross transgression doesn’t deserve an explanation.

The same goes for members of a profession. Each profession has review boards of one kind or another to discipline errant members. In extreme cases, these boards react just as an outraged homeowner would: by telling the transgressor that they don’t want that person around anymore. Henceforth, the offender can’t be a doctor or a lawyer, a soldier or a priest.

That’s what happened to Madison County class attorney Gary Evan Peel, and he had it coming!

Last week, noting that Peel had “committed criminal acts that reflected adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects, and engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice,” a hearing board of the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission recommended his disbarment.

Sorry, Mr. Peel, but you don’t deserve to be a lawyer anymore.