Case Title: In re Application of Wagner

Citation: 2008-Ohio-3916

Docket Number: 20080728

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2008-08-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as In re Application of Wagner, 119 Ohio St.3d 280, 2008-Ohio-3916.] 
 
 
IN RE APPLICATION OF WAGNER. 
[Cite as In re Application of Wagner, 119 Ohio St.3d 280, 2008-Ohio-3916.] 
Attorneys—Character and fitness of applicant disapproved—Failure to disclose 
delinquent fines and pending DUI charge. 
(No. 2008-0728 — Submitted June 24, 2008 — Decided August 12, 2008.) 
ON REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness of the 
Supreme Court, No. 364. 
_______________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} The applicant, Margaret Janet Wagner of Fort Thomas, Kentucky, 
is a candidate for admission to the Ohio bar and initially applied to take the Ohio 
bar examination that was administered in July 2007.  The Board of 
Commissioners on Character and Fitness has recommended that we disapprove 
the 2007 application but permit the applicant to reapply for the July 2008 exam, 
based on findings that she failed (1) to readily disclose a charge of driving under 
the influence, (2) to pay fines assessed upon her conviction of that offense, and 
(3) to accept responsibility for her wrongdoing.  These failings warrant 
disapproval; however, if the applicant reapplies and is able to establish her 
character, fitness, and other qualifications for bar admission, she may take the 
February 2009 bar exam. 
Events Leading to the Board’s Recommendation 
{¶ 2} The applicant, a May 2007 graduate of the University of Cincinnati 
Law School, had registered as a candidate for admission to the Ohio bar in 
November 2005.  She was stopped for driving erratically at 4:00 a.m. on April 30, 
2006, in Newport, Kentucky.  She had been drinking and, after registering .17 
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grams of alcohol per 210 liters of breath, was arrested and charged with driving 
under the influence of alcohol (“DUI”). 
{¶ 3} Pursuant to Gov.Bar R. I(11)(C)(3) and (D)(1), two members of 
the Cincinnati Bar Association’s admissions committee interviewed the applicant 
on June 13, 2006, to ascertain whether she possessed the requisite character, 
fitness, and moral qualifications for admission to the practice of law.  The 
interviewers asked the applicant, “Is there anything in your application that needs 
to be changed, updated, that would make it no longer correct?  Things like 
changes of address, recent convictions, problems with alcohol, problems with 
credit and other such things?”  The applicant denied any such problems. 
{¶ 4} The applicant, who eventually pleaded guilty to the DUI charge in 
August 2006, did not disclose the charge, then pending, during her interview.  She 
has since explained that she did not think that she had problems with alcohol and 
that at the time of the interview, she had not been convicted of any offense.  
Within a day after her interview, however, a friend advised her that she should 
have disclosed the DUI charge even if she intended to contest it.  As a result, the 
applicant quickly called one of her interviewers, and they arranged for a second 
interview. 
{¶ 5} Due to scheduling and other procedural complications, however, 
the applicant’s second interview did not take place until June 21, 2007, nearly one 
year after she was convicted of DUI and ordered to pay attendant fines and costs.  
By the time of her second interview, the applicant had also applied to take the 
July 2007 bar exam, properly updating her application with notice of her DUI 
conviction.  The interviewers recommended the applicant’s approval after the 
second interview, although they expressed some reservations about her 
willingness to accept responsibility for her conviction and initial nondisclosure.  
Their concerns stemmed in large part from an undated written statement that the 
applicant provided to her law school after her conviction and then supplied along 
January Term, 2008 
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with her supplemental character questionnaire.  The statement, which the 
applicant did not recant at the panel hearing, reads: 
{¶ 6} “In August or September I plead guilty to DUI charges.  As I was 
driving my intoxicated friends home at four am on a Saturday night, I was pulled 
over by a bored Newport police officer, whose girlfriend was riding along, for 
swerving within my lane and making a wide turn.  I passed the field sobriety tests, 
although the tape mysteriously disapeered [sic], but failed the breathalyzer due to 
a medical condition (IBS [irritable bowel syndrome]).  Being unable to afford a 
decent lawyer, much less an expert on erudication [sic] and breathalyzers, I 
decided to plead guilty. 
{¶ 7} “After conducting some research, I was amazed at the unreliability 
of breathalyzers, and will never blow in one again, even if I have not had a sip of 
alcohol.  Every time I get the chance I pass the knowledge I have gained from this 
experience to others. 
{¶ 8} “Moral of this story, if the system wants you, and you have little 
money, it will get you.” 
{¶ 9} The bar association’s admissions committee then recommended 
final approval of the applicant’s character and fitness.  In July 2007, however, the 
board invoked its sua sponte authority under Gov.Bar R. I(10)(B)(2)(e) to further 
investigate the applicant’s character, fitness, and moral qualifications. 
{¶ 10} Before and during the ensuing board investigation, the applicant 
defaulted on an agreement to apply $50 per month toward the fines and court 
costs assessed against her for the August 2006 DUI conviction.  She finally 
satisfied this obligation in December 2007, shortly after she applied to take the 
February 2008 bar examination.  The applicant reported her delay in a December 
20, 2007 facsimile letter to Office of Bar Admissions, explaining that she had not 
realized her duty to report this arrearage in response to inquiries about newly 
incurred fines and debt in the supplemental character questionnaire. 
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{¶ 11} A panel appointed by the board heard the case on January 4, 2008.  
The majority of the panel members recommended that the applicant be permitted 
to apply for the bar exam to be administered in February 2008.  In recommending 
the applicant’s disapproval, however, the board adopted the dissenting panel 
member’s view and recommended that the applicant be permitted to apply for the 
July 2008 bar exam. 
The Board’s Concerns 
{¶ 12} At the panel hearing, the applicant tried to explain her initial 
failure to disclose the pending DUI charge, her unduly defensive letter to her law 
school, and her failure to pay fines as agreed.  She claimed that she had decided 
not to disclose the DUI arrest on the advice of her lawyer, who had supposedly 
taken into account the applicant’s lack of any alcohol dependence and lack of any 
recent criminal conviction. 
{¶ 13} As for her letter to the law school after her conviction, the 
applicant explained that she was “angry and upset” and that she “just wrote off the 
cuff and sent it and it’s not something [that she] should have done.”  The 
applicant acknowledged that the letter is “very inflammatory” and that she “had a 
bad attitude about it.”  The applicant finished by saying, “I’m not used to being in 
trouble, and I did not handle it well.” 
{¶ 14} Finally, when asked about the delinquent payment of her court 
fines, the applicant replied that she did not realize the default until she received 
notice of her failure to qualify to take the July 2007 bar exam.  When she called 
the court to inquire about her record, the court informed her of the arrearages.  
The applicant explained that she must have forgotten the fines in the excitement 
of her impending wedding. 
{¶ 15} The board was skeptical of the applicant’s explanations, noting in 
particular that she supposedly forgot to pay her fines at the same time she was 
reporting the DUI conviction to her law school and in connection with her 
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application for the July 2007 bar exam.  Moreover, though the applicant tested .17 
on a breath analyzer in a jurisdiction with a legal limit of .08 and pleaded guilty to 
the charged DUI, she continued to debate the validity of her conviction during the 
board proceedings by blaming everyone but herself.  The board thus also 
expressed misgivings about the applicant’s refusal to completely acknowledge her 
wrongdoing and the disrespect she directed toward the criminal justice system 
simply for holding her accountable for it. 
Disposition 
{¶ 16} An applicant to the Ohio bar must prove with clear and convincing 
evidence that he or she “possesses the requisite character, fitness, and moral 
qualifications for admission to the practice of law.”  Gov.Bar R. I(11)(D)(1).  The 
applicant’s record must justify “the trust of clients, adversaries, courts, and others 
with respect to the professional duties owed to them.”  Gov.Bar R. I(11)(D)(3).  
Necessarily, “[a] record manifesting a significant deficiency in the honesty, 
trustworthiness, diligence, or reliability of an applicant may constitute a basis for 
disapproval of the applicant.”  Id. 
{¶ 17} Citing the lack of clear and convincing evidence, the board found: 
{¶ 18} “The Applicant’s conduct with regard to the DUI, her failure 
timely to pay fines, and to report the offense, as well as her ill-advised letter to the 
law school written a year after her arrest, bring into question her trustworthiness, 
diligence and reliability.  While the conviction of the DUI itself does not 
necessarily reflect an untreated alcohol dependency, her conduct can be construed 
as reflecting dishonesty or at least a failure to provide complete and accurate 
information about her past.  Her failure to pay her fines promptly suggests 
perhaps a neglect of financial responsibilities. The totality of the evidence 
presented suggests a failure to accept the responsibilities placed upon her and a 
lack of mature respect for the law.” 
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{¶ 19} The applicant has yet to sustain her burden of proof.  We therefore 
accept the board’s recommendation to disapprove.  The applicant, provided that 
she is able to establish her character, fitness, and other qualifications, may apply 
to take the February 2009 bar exam. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
MOYER, 
C.J., 
and 
PFEIFER, 
LUNDBERG 
STRATTON, 
O’CONNOR, 
O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, and CUPP, JJ., concur. 
_________________________ 
William Bruce Davis, for the Cincinnati Bar Association. 
Margaret Janet Wagner, pro se. 
_________________________