Court Opinion

ID: 9536104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:54:58.677307+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:27.380538
License: Public Domain

Hale, J.
(concurring specially) — I have signed and approve the rationale of the majority opinion but would limit the operation of opinion No. 95 (1967) of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics. The quoted opinion No. 95, although obviously purporting to apply only to civil actions against municipalities, recites a number of assumptions which might, on the authority of the instant case, serve to extend it to criminal cases. I would, therefore, regard the bar committee’s opinion as no more than *422an example in support of rather than a substantive authority for a declared rule.
In many areas of state, federal and municipal government, statutes, ordinances and charters impose upon a specific component of government the duty to investigate and prepare the defense of civil claims and to investigate and prepare the prosecution of criminal charges. In some instances, the laws creating this duty place it exclusively upon one of the investigative agencies and do not contemplate a referral to or intervention by the government’s law office or lawyers until shortly before trial. Under the prevailing governmental scheme, whether state, federal or municipal, it may well be that the lawyers for the government are not to be consulted nor to participate in the investigation until the designated agency has completed its investigation and submitted its reports and evidence to the law department. The cited opinion No. 95 appears to ignore and runs contra to these procedures.
Although the opinions of the bar committee should be considered by the courts and accorded the weight which their intrinsic merit and intellectual force may merit, these opinions, in my view, ought not be allowed to control governmental procedures established by statute, charter and ordinance under the constitutions.
Ennis, J. Pro Tern., concurs with Hale, J.