Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-07-03

WINFIELD 8. HANCOCK,
Mai. Gen. Comd'g Dept. La. and Texas.
The Woolley Case.
We are indebted to the courtesy of
Hon. J. Proctor Knott and his interest
in the Steinman and Hensel disbarment
case for calling our attention to an At
tempted disbarment by the court of ap-
peals of Kentucky, which court having
itself abandoned the notion the case was
not reported in the books. The attorney
upon whom the rule was taken was
R.W. .WOolley, esq.,, of Louisville, who is
spoken of in the argument as having
"sprung from race of eminent lawyers
whose names are among the most pre-
ciOus memories which cluster around
this venerable COURT" who had shown
himself " worthy of the name he bears
and the blood he inherits,'' and whose
name, though it might be stricken from
the roll of practising attorneys, could not
be erased from the register of those who
have reflected honor on the legal profes-
sion. 1t was in July, 1874, that the
court of fappeals-the tribunal of last re-
sort in that state-took violent exception
to what they called disrespectful and
insulting" language in Mr.. Woolley's Pc
tition for a rehearing of the appeal in a
case which he had argued and with the
disposition of which he was not satisfied,
and the court ruled him to answer why
his authority to practice law should not
be revoked and why he should not be
otherwise punished for contempt. The
argument was made for him by w. c..
T: breckenridge, distinguished lawyer
of Kentucky and one of its most eminent
representatives in the late Cincinnati
convention. After they had heard him
the members of the court discharged the
rule (which they seem to have rather has
tily entered.
In his admirable argument--which at
tracted such attention and for copies of
which there has been such demand that
it WAS procured for us with great diff
culty-Mr. Breckenridge most ably dis
cusses the law of contempt and disbar-
ment and conclusively proves. as he so
felicitiOusly expresses it, that after " a
thorough research of all the precedents
from Westminster to California; with
two notorious exceptions, they fail to
show any approved and sustained disbar-
ment of an attorney for contemptuous
words spoken or written. Contempt
bears no relation to forfeiture and for
feiture is never supplemented or accom-
panied by punishment for contempt. Pro-
ceedings tOpunish fora contempt and pro-
ceedings to revoke lawyers franchise
are as dissimilar us a police warrant to
punish bank president for an assault,
and 4 quo ,CdrrantO to revoke the charter
of his bank All the English courts
with one eexception-thate exception being
an adjudication by Scroggs, i" in the
worst year of the reign of the most cor
rupt monarch that ever sat on the Eng
lish throne''-have held to the doctrine
that disbarment must he for uA6tness
and not by way of punishment. A law
yer as a lawyer is never punished for con-
tempt; but like any other person must
answer in contempt for what he did !; his
franchises are revoked for what he Is.
" A lawyer can be deprived of his pro-
prietary rights only by losing some of the
qualifications, the existence of which was
necessary to enable him to obtain the
franchise
The American exception to the
universal recognition of these wei
settled legal principles, to which
Mr.. Breckenridgefs argument refers
is the North Carolina case which
was so extensively cited and relied upor
by the counsel for Judges Patterson and
Livingston in the recent argument OF
the Steinman and IIensel case before the
supreme court. "There was a precedent
in Scroggs, but it should be remembered
that it has not been the habit in England
since the revolution of 1858 either to read
or initiate Scroggs''; and probably nt
American Judge would care to be spared
reversal by relying on Scroggs's prece
dent alone. The North Carolina court
disbarred one hundred and eight of the
first gentlemen of the North Carolina
bar, who seeing with professional sensi
bility the shame of degenerate post bel
lwm bench had publicly protested against
the courts I" throwing aside the ermine
rushing into the mad contest of politics
under the excitement of drums and
flags" and studying the book of law
under the banner of party In re
spending they affirmed, as Messrs. Stein
man and Hensel answered, that thei
object had been not to impair the integ
rity of the court, but to preserve its pu
rity-when the court itself had failed to
vindicate its own integrity. The court
nevertheless, assumed the right to sus
pend for words written, "but its exer
else, amid such bad temper, was avoided
because of the response
With these two solitary exceptions tn
precedents fail to sustain the disbarmen
for contempt. The statute of 1886, a
Judge Patterson discovered after he hai
entered his rules, forbids the punishment
even for contempt in Pennsylvania fol