Court Opinion

ID: 6467089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-06-26 14:07:21.973894+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:53:42.325614
License: Public Domain

Collier, J. In concurring in the conclusion of a majority of the court in this case, I can not assent to all that is said in the opinion of the court-.’ It was announced at the time the judgment of the court dismissing the charges was rendered that some observations on certain practices indulged in by respondents would form a part of the opinion of the court. Many matters expected by myself to be adverted to are not contained in the opinion, or referred to either directly or indirectly. As to these I will not submit any views, because, as they in no way appear on the face of the record, I will not impart them for the mere purpose of giving an individual opinion. The opinion does, however, contain some things I must express my dissent from. I do not believe that an attorney having a high sense of professional decorum and ethics would have permitted himself to visit the witness Nowell, upon, the plea that he honestly desired to ascertain what the witness would testify to, because he had stated to another in conversation a different state of facts from what he had already testified to. He could not rest upon' the presumption that the witness would repeat his former testimony, and it was not the office or business of the attorney against whose client that testimony militated to give that witness any warning or advice as to the pains of perjury. The fact that witness- could have testified in a certain way, and is told by the attorney of the client against whom that testimony bore that it would be shown that, he made contradictory statements, is itself a threat tending to the suppression of testimony. The attorney should have relied upon his right to impeach the credibility of such witness according to the rules of evidence, and the practice of the courts, and I can not agree that I “discover no unprofessional conduct” in the respondent’s visiting and talking with the witness Nowell. While I think his act was blameworthy, I do not think it such reprehensible conduct as deserves disbarment. Other matters I do not care to advert to, except to say that I believe counsel should so bear themselves toward witnesses who are subpoenaed for the side to which they are opposed as not to give rise to the suspicion of improper influences being exerted; and I think that, so far as the witnesses Max Knodt, Domingo Apodaca, and Luis Gronzales are concerned, the respondents do not appear to have so conducted themselves as to ward off suspicion. If the two latter witnesses were of such unsavory character as the testimony of the respondents shows, and which the court takes as established, it were better for counsel to have kept aloof, instead of seeking one and being visited by the other, as is the case so far as respondent Spiess is concerned, it not being denied that Spiess visited Domingo Apodaca, nor that Gonzales came to his office upon the request of his employee. I have thought it my duty to say this much as to the concurrence I give to the court’s opinion, because these matters appear on the face of that opinion.