Opinion ID: 2092153
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Petitioner's Lack of Candor and Truthfulness

Text: It has been established that the petitioner was not truthful in applying for the purchase of firearms. It also has been established that petitioner was not truthful in answering a question on the bar application about the use of aliases, although he did admit to having used three aliases: Carl Davis, Rodger Roop, and Roger Bell. He indicated on his application that these aliases were used for the purpose of attending school, writing, and telephone fundraising. In his testimony before the committee, however, he admitted that the use of the alias Carl Davis was to help him evade the law after he was indicted for the weapons charge in Montana. When he assisted in a senatorial campaign, he also used another alias, Roger Bell, in order to hide his true identity when salary payments were made to him. The minority report that Chairman McInnis submitted concluded that Roots's lack of candor in this respect would not be consistent with allowing petitioner to practice law. We have recently affirmed that [t]he attorney-client relationship is `one of mutual trust, confidence, and good will,' in which the attorney `is bound to    the most scrupulous good faith.' DiLuglio v. Providence Auto Body, Inc., 755 A.2d 757, 769 (R.I.2000) (quoting Peirce v. Palmer, 31 R.I. 432, 450, 77 A. 201, 209 (1910)). A central purpose of requiring character review as part of the attorney-admission process is to protect those members of the public who might become clients of the practicing lawyer from those attorneys who are so morally or ethically challenged that they are unable to demonstrate the type of good character and moral fitness requisite to serving in a fiduciary capacity. As Mr. Justice Frankfurter once observed, lawyers stand `as a shield'    in defense of right and to ward off wrong. From a profession charged with such responsibilities there must be exacted those qualities of truth-speaking, of a high sense of honor, of granite discretion, of the strictest observance of fiduciary responsibility, that have, throughout the centuries, been compendiously described as `moral character.' Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners of New Mexico, 353 U.S. 232, 247, 77 S.Ct. 752, 761, 1 L.Ed.2d 796, 806 (1957) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). See also Deborah L. Rhode, Moral Character as a Professional Credential, 94 Yale L.J. 491 (1985). The fiduciary position of trust that a lawyer assumes vis-à-vis his or her clients demands that individuals whom this Court admits to the bar should be worthy of the confidence that members of the public repose in them. An equal and complementary concern is to safeguard the administration of justice from those who might subvert it through misrepresentations, falsehoods, or incomplete disclosures when full disclosure is necessary. See Donald T. Weckstein, Recent Developments in the Character and Fitness Qualifications for the Practice of Law: The Law School Role; The Political Dissident, 40 Bar Exam. 17, 23 (1971). As we have noted previously, Roots was not truthful in applying to buy firearms. Indeed, he repeatedly checked a box indicating that he was not a convicted felon when he applied for his gun purchases, despite previously having been convicted of a felony. Thereafter, Roots was convicted for violently resisting arrest, and ultimately spent close to a year in prison for that offense after violating his initial three-year-probation sentence. He was also well aware of his convictions at the time he applied to buy his various assault weapons, yet he failed to disclose them. Furthermore, Roots admitted to the committee that he was less than forthcoming on his bar application about the reason for his use of the Carl Davis alias. Significantly, Roots submitted this untruthful application for admittance to the bar in 1999. When pressed about this discrepancy, Roots was unable to reconcile these contradictory statements. Moreover, as mentioned above, Roots already had been convicted criminally of providing a false statement to the authorities. Such a record of dishonesty, combined with Roots's other criminal misconduct and recent fabrication on his bar application, appears to us to justify at least a several-year delay before Roots's application even should be considered again for his possible admission to the bar. And Roots's use of an alias to mask his unsavory connections to white supremacy groups while working for the Committee to Reelect Conrad Burns, and his use of false indorsements on his paychecks, are simply further reasons for this Court to deny Roots's application at this time. In sum, then, we agree with the minority report that this applicant's lack of candor is inconsistent with admitting him to practice law at this time.