Despite the pardons, on Feb. 8, the Missouri Supreme Court indefinitely suspended the law licenses of the McCloskeys after their misdemeanor convictions. The court found that by showing their weapons, the McCloskeys had engaged in unlawyerly conduct involving “moral turpitude.” At the same time, the court stayed the suspension, subject to a year of probation during which the two attorneys must “not engage in conduct that violates the Rules of Professional Conduct,” as The Epoch Times reported. Moral turpitude is a legal term describing “wicked, deviant behavior constituting an immoral, unethical, or unjust departure from ordinary social standards such that it would shock a community,” according to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School.
