Court Opinion

ID: 9696321
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:44:54.970237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:21.302749
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Kelleher,
dissenting. The respondent stands convicted of criminal activity which not only smacks of moral turpitude but more importantly seeks to subvert the judicial process. Within recent memory an attorney who had failed to file his federal income tax return, when he appeared before us on a show cause order as to why he should not be disciplined, pointed out to us that failure to file a tax return was not considered as a crime involving moral turpitude. While *953we agreed that the attorney’s point was well taken, we, nevertheless, suspended him from the practice of law.1 Other attorneys who have been incarcerated for their failure to file tax returns and whose reputations before their involvement with the Internal Revenue Service rated just as high as the respondent’s have been suspended from the practice of law for a period that extended beyond the time of their incarceration. Up to today the public could expect that any member of the Rhode Island Bar who might be convicted of a crime which demonstrated a lack of professional conduct would be barred by this court from practicing law for whatever period of time seemed proper under the circumstances of the case.
Saul Friedman for Max Levin.
Public censure of the respondent is totally inconsistent with our past actions and completely at odds with the high degree of professional conduct and standard of excellence that the public quite properly expects this court to demand from those who hold its license to practice law in this jurisdiction. Consequently, I must dissent from the order of censure. I would suspend the respondent from the practice of the law for a period of 3 years, and if it were not for his advanced age. I would have voted for disbarment.

 I see no necessity for citing the specific cases of attorneys who have been before us for failure to file their federal tax return, but they can be found in the Attorney and Client section of the Rhode Island Digest.