Court Opinion

ID: 9792166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:24:19.408166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:40.874351
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Chief Justice,
concurring:
I concur in the court’s opinion. However, I write to note the importance this court is placing on the terms of the Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions and on trial courts adhering to those standards, both in classifying conduct for purposes of determining the presumptive sanction and in assuring that mitigating and aggravating circumstances are weighed'appropriately before any decision is made to depart from the presumptive sanction.
There is good reason for requiring adherence to these standards. One of the failings of the disciplinary regime as it existed before the present one was that when sanction recommendations came to this court from the Bar Commission, there was no set of standards that defined the sanction generally appropriate for any given type of conduct. That meant that the Bar’s recommendations had something of an ad hoc character to them, when viewed over the years, and that ’this court’s action on those recommendations had a similar character. In the absence of a detailed set of guidelines, both the Commission and this court were left a bit at sea, which raised the possibility that those similarly situated might not receive similar sanctions. This lack of guidelines was noted by the court and was one of the factors that prompted the adoption of the current standards.
Now that we have standards, we should be vigorous in requiring that trial courts follow them so that all concerned know that each judge across the state before whom disciplinary matters are brought is following the same script. This will lessen concerns on the part of lawyers that the sanction imposed in a given case will depend more on the judge before whom the matter is tried than on the nature of the conduct; it will increase the confidence of trial judges that if they follow the standards, they will not be overturned unexpectedly; and it will lessen the inclination of lawyers to appeal sanctions in the hope that this court will idiosyncratically lessen a sanction that is in accordance with the standards’ detailed requirements. These standards are a significant advance in the effort to treat similarly situated persons similarly, something that is essential if the lawyer discipline machinery we have crafted is to retain the confidence of the Bar and the public.
HOWE, J., concurs in Chief Justice ZIMMERMAN’S opinion.