Opinion ID: 1980830
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Deposition Perjury. The charge involving perjury also presents two subsidiary problems.

Text: A. The first problem is procedural. Count I of the complaint sets forth in considerable detail the facts relating to the perjury and respondent's connection with it. A person of ordinary intelligence would readily perceive the gravamen of that count. As a conclusion, the Committee alleges that complainant violated specified statutes in the Iowa Code and also specified clauses of the Iowa Code of Professional Responsibility for Lawyers. Section 610.14(3) of the Iowa Code prescribes as one of the duties of an attorney: It is the duty of an attorney and counselor: . . . 3. To employ, for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to him, such means only as are consistent with truth, and never to seek to mislead the judges by any artifice or false statement of fact or law. Then § 610.24(3), which is one of the statutes specified by the Committee, provides: The following are sufficient causes for revocation or suspension [of an attorney's license]: . . . 3. A willful violation of any of the duties of an attorney or counselor as hereinbefore prescribed. Respondent contends that Count I of the complaint must fail because the Committee founded it on the Code of Professional Responsibility, which was not in effect when the perjury occurred. We would doubt the soundness of respondent's contention that Count I must fail even if § 610.24(3) of the Iowa statutes were not alleged by the Committee. But we need not go that far. The statute is alleged. We therefore place the Code of Professional Responsibility aside as a basis for decision and proceed under the statute. B. The second problem involves the merits of the charge relating to the perjury. What are the facts of the matter? Mr. and Mrs. Curtis were husband and wife, lived together, and had three children. Respondent began to see Mrs. Curtis and stayed with her at various places and slept with herboth before and after Mrs. Curtis commenced her divorce suit against Mr. Curtis. After Mrs. Curtis commenced that suit, defense counsel in that case took her discovery deposition. Respondent, as associate of Mr. Gray, assisted with Mrs. Curtis' case. Respondent personally knew of Mrs. Curtis' misconduct, for he himself was her paramour. This was at a time when recrimination was a defense to divorce, and Mrs. Curtis' conduct would be in issue. Nichols v. Nichols, 257 Iowa 458, 133 N.W.2d 77. Moreover, the suit involved child custody, which in turn involved the spouses' conduct. In re Dawson's Marriage, 214 N.W.2d 131 (Iowa). These are basic legal principles which a practicing attorney handling the divorce case would have in mind. But more than that, respondent had been personally involved in child custody litigation himself. He must have considered these legal principles; Mrs. Curtis faced a discovery deposition and respondent was himself sexually involved with her. Yet in the present disciplinary proceeding, respondent testified: Q. At the time of the deposition on June 3rd and 5th of 1970 and immediately prior to that, had you in any way discussed with Sue Crary what her testimony should be with reference to your association with her? A. No. Didn't come up. We do not believe this testimony that the matter did not come up. Respondent also testified: Q. When the questions were asked to which she gave false answers, what did you do? A. I sat there. Q. Was it a surprise to you? A. Yeah. I had fully expected them to go into her background. She had been married for 17 years to Mr. Curtis, and obviously over 17 years many things happen, and I expected them to explore into their relationship and what was going on there. When they switched over into what she was doing two months after she filed for divorce and that sort of thing, it caught me by surprise, it caught her by surprise, I'm sure. At least she said it did afterwards. That seemed to be the tenor of the examination, as to what she was  done following the time she filed for divorce. We do not believe this latter answer either. Respondent contends, however, that the record contains no express testimony by him or Mrs. Curtis that he put her up to the false stories she related in the deposition. Yet those stories did not come out of thin air; they took some contriving. We doubt that Mrs. Curtis simply developed those stories about Mrs. Needham as the deposition progressed or that she developed them alone. We think respondent was involved in the whole shameful episode, but we will accept arguendo his contention that he did not contrive the perjury with Mrs. Curtis. Then we have a situation in which respondent as an attorney at a deposition listened, his client started to lie under oath, he knew she was lying, and he just sat there and let her lie. More than that, the deposition recessed over Thursday, and respondent did nothing to stop Mrs. Curtis from lying some more. She resumed her lying on Friday and respondent still just sat there. What is the law of this matter? We are not disposed to read §§ 610.14(3) and 610.24(3) of the Iowa Code in a narrow, technical, or legalistic manner. Assuming respondent did not know in advance that Mrs. Curtis was going to lie, his guilt was in failing to stop her or otherwise to call a halt when she started to lie. Central to the administration of justice is the fact-finding process. Legislatures and courts can devise the finest rules of law, but if those rules are applied to false facts, justice miscarries. The attorney functions at the heart of the fact-finding process, both in trial and in pre- and post-trial proceedings. If he knowingly suffers a witness to lie, he undermines the integrity of the fact-finding system of which he himself is an integral part. Thus the fundamental rule is unquestioned that an attorney must not knowingly permit a witness to lie. In re Hardenbrook, 135 App.Div. 634, 121 N.Y.S. 250, affd. 199 N.Y. 539, 92 N.E. 1086, app. den. 144 App. Div. 928, 129 N.Y.S. 1126 (disbarment where attorney learned after first day of trial that client lied, but nevertheless recalled client to testify on second day); In re Crary, 223 App.Div. 277, 228 N.Y.S. 340; In re Barach, 279 Pa. 89, 123 A. 727 (disbarment where attorney permitted witnesses to testify they were present at injury when he knew they were not present); 7 C.J.S. Attorney & Client § 23 at 753-754 (There is no recognized rule of law or ethics which justifies the conduct of counsel in any case, civil or criminal, in endeavoring by dishonest means to mislead the court or jury, even if to do so might work to the advantage of his client, and such conduct will constitute a ground for suspension or disbarment. . . . An attorney may be suspended or disbarred for perverting, or attempting to pervert, a decision of a cause on the merits, by . . . introducing evidence or allowing evidence to be given which he knows to be false or forged  italics added). But respondent contends he was not required to volunteer to opposing counsel or the court that Mrs. Curtis' testimony was false, since this could have provided evidence for building an adultery case against him. He cites authority that an attorney like others is privileged not to produce evidence which will incriminate him. Spevack v. Klein, 385 U.S. 511, 87 S.Ct. 625, 17 L.Ed.2d 574. Respondent does not seem to grasp the point here. We do not place the decision on respondent's failure to inform opposing counsel or the court of the truth. In the present case no need really existed for this. Opposing counsel was not misled. His subsequent questions revealed he knew the facts; he made Mrs. Curtis' perjury patent. The vice of respondent's conduct was not in failing to reveal the truth but in participating in the corruption of the fact-finding system by knowingly permitting Mrs. Curtis to lie. Indeed if Mr. Curtis had not had private investigators, the falsity of this testimony might never have come to light; Mrs. Curtis' perjury, countenanced by respondent, might have subsequently carried the day in court. Contrast with respondent's conduct the acts of Mr. Gray. When that attorney suspected on Friday that Mrs. Curtis was lying he confronted respondent and upon learning the truth said, She can't sit there and tell this story. He thereupon recessed the deposition. Apart from self-incrimination, respondent contends that his duty to protect his client, Mrs. Curtis, conflicted with his duty to the justice system to divulge the falsity, and that he properly placed his duty to his client first. He bases this contention on the attorney-client privilege. Respondent confuses the duty to divulge the truth after perjury is committed with the duty not to permit a witness to give false testimony in the first place. We will proceed on this contention, however, on respondent's basis, as though respondent's breach was in not divulging the truth to opposing counsel or the court after the false testimony was given. We address respondent's contention as he does under the attorney-client privilege and without reference to any other privilege. The difficulty with respondent's contention is that it proceeds from a false premise. He cites the article entitled Perjury, The Lawyer's Trilemma, in Litigation (Winter 1975 Journ. of A.B.A. Litigation Section). From this article, he concludes that a conflict between two duties exists: one to the client, the other to the justice system. The flaw in respondent's reasoning is that no duty exists to the client when the client perjures himself to the knowledge of the attorney. Such conduct by the client falls outside the attorney-client relationship. When a prospective client approaches an attorney, he may expect that the attorney will assist him to the best of the attorney's ability. He may not expect, however, that the attorney will tolerate lying or any other species of fraud in the process. Prior to the present Code of Professional Responsibility, Canon 15 stated: Nothing operates more certainly to create or to foster popular prejudice against lawyers as a class and to deprive the profession of that full measure of public esteem and confidence which belongs to the proper discharge of its duties than does the false claim, often set up by the unscrupulous in defense of questionable transactions, that it is the duty of the lawyer to do whatever will enable him to succeed in winning a client's cause. . . The office of attorney does not permit, much less does it demand of him for any client, violation of law or any manner of fraud or chicane. He must obey his own conscience and not that of his client. Canons of Professional Ethics (A.B.A. 1957). Correspondingly, the present rules state that A lawyer shall not . . . [e]ngage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation, [e]ngage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice, [p]articipate in the creation or preservation of evidence when he knows or it is obvious that the evidence is false, or [c]ounsel or assist his client in conduct that the lawyer knows to be illegal or fraudulent. Iowa Code of Professional Responsibility for Lawyers (1971) DR1-102(A)(4) and (5), DR7-102(A)(6) and (7). We hold that respondent acted unethically in knowingly permitting Mrs. Curtis to commit perjury on the first day of the deposition and to resume the perjury two days later, and that in so doing, he violated §§ 610.14(3) and 610.24(3) of the Iowa Code. III. Frustration of Decree. The issue under the second count of the complaint, dealing with the child custody order in the Curtis divorce decree, is largely factual. Here again respondent ascribes to us a naivete which is not altogether the fact. He would have us believe that Mrs. Curtis and the children were the ones who brought down the decree and he had no role in the process. Shortly after the divorce court passed the decree, respondent and Mrs. Curtis married. From then on, respondent and Mrs. Curtis lived together and much of the time one or both of the two younger children lived with them. A definite pattern of conduct aimed at nullifying the custody order emerged from numerous acts of respondent and Mrs. Curtis. Our review of the evidence abidingly persuades us that respondent participated in the successful effort to terminate the custody order in fact. The Commission found that respondent condoned Mrs. Curtis' acts to that end; we find further from the facts and the circumstances that he acted in concert with her in the enterprise. Circumstantial evidence can be powerful proof, and it is powerful here. State v. DeRaad, 164 N.W.2d 108 (Iowa). An attorney may of course challenge a decree of a court by motion, appeal, or other legal means, but as long as the decree stands he must abide by it. Fisher v. Pace, 336 U.S. 155, 69 S.Ct. 425, 93 L.Ed. 569; see Maness v. Meyers, 419 U.S. 449, 94 S.Ct. 584, 42 L.Ed.2d 574; In re Daly, 291 Minn. 488, 189 N.W.2d 176. In like manner he must not counsel others to disobey decrees or be a party with them to disobedience. Territory v. Clancy, 7 N.M. 580, 37 P. 1108; In re Apfel, 202 App.Div. 76, 195 N.Y.S. 325; Ex Parte Miller, 37 Or. 304, 60 P. 999. Respondent violated the latter principle here. We hold that respondent acted unethically in proceeding in concert with Mrs. Curtis to nullify the custody decree, and that in so doing he violated §§ 610.14(1) and 610.24(3) of the Iowa Code. IV. Discipline. Reprimand is wholly inadequate discipline in this case. Respondent participated in the debasement of the fact-finding process and he took part in the overthrow of a decree of a court. His conduct was diametrically opposed to the fundamental duties of attorneys to bring truth rather than untruth to light and to uphold rather than bring down the judgments of courts. The first requisite of an attorney is basic character. Uppermost in our minds is the question whether respondent possesses the character necessary to qualify him as an attorney. We have placed in the balance all of the factors shown in evidence. After doing so, we conclude that respondent's license should be revoked, and we so order. LICENSE REVOKED. All Justices concur except RAWLINGS and REES, JJ., who take no part.