Court Opinion

ID: 9422587
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:03:27.698544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:34.544784
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
whom Mr. Justice Clark joins,
dissenting.
The majority and concurring opinions bear witness to the difficulty the Court has had divining from this messy and opaque record whether the case in truth presents a substantial federal question. Obviously much influenced by the amended remittitur of the Court of Appeals, the *110Court considers that the state courts have held that an applicant for membership in the New York Bar may be ■ denied admission without having had the opportunity at any stage to confront persons whose unfavorable information may have led the Character Committee to refuse to certify the candidate’s “character and fitness.”
It would take a great deal to persuade me that either of these experienced and respected New York courts has been guilty of such a questionable constitutional holding. In light of the record, I do not believe that either the Court of Appeals’ affirmance or its amended remittitur by any means points to the interpretation which .this Court now places on the action of that court. In my view the more reasonable, and correct, interpretation is that the Court of Appeals simply held that, in light of what had gone before,1 the Appellate Division’s refusal to *111entertain petitioner’s last de novo application for admission — the eighth proceeding before that court — involved no abuse of its discretion under Rule 1 of the New York Rules of Civil Practice. More particularly, in these prior proceedings no confrontation claim was raised until 1954 — some 16 years after the original denial of admission — during which period the matter had already been before the Appellate Division five times (note 1, supra).2
*112So interpreting the Court of Appeals’ action, I do not think this cáse presents a substantial fede. al question— no more so than' did the petition for certiorari which was filed here in 1955, raising this same confrontation question in almost the same context of prior proceedings, and. which this Court then denied. In re Willner, 348 U. S. 955.
Now that plenary consideration has shed more light on this case than in the nature of things was afforded at the time the petition for certiorari was acted upon, I think the proper course is to dismiss the writ as improvidently. granted.

The chronology of events was in substance this: The Appellate Division, upon the Character Committee’s refusal to certify the applicant, originally denied admission in 1938. Refusal of certification had followed petitioner’s appearance before the Committee at which, among other things, he had been informed and interrogated about complaints received from two lawyers, Wieder and Dempsey. (Wieder charged that petitioner had not completed his required “clerkship,” having been discharged from Wieder’s office for unsatisfactory performance before the end of the clerkship period. Dempsey’s complaint related to certain litigation involving petitioner and one of Dempsey’s clients, in which petitioner had been charged with fraud in connection with accountancy services performed for the client.) Apart from these ex 'parte charges, petitioner in his return to the Committee’s written questionnaire had (1) stated that he had not been connected with any law offices, although in a later interview he had informed the Committee that he had in fact been employed in Wieder’s office for a short time; (2) stated that he had served "no clerkship,” although he had subsequently informed the Committee of the filing of a certificate of clerkship with the Court of Appeals in Albany; (3) failed to disclose the aforementioned suit brought against him by Dempsey’s client; (4) failed to disclose an annulment suit that had been brought against him by his 16-year-old wife, later *111stating that he had omitted this information because “Some people consider it a heinous offense”; and (5) failed to include six other suits or judgments against him among those listed in the questionnaire. The Committee characterized petitioner’s demeanor as one of “general evasiveness.”
Although he made.no contemporary effort to obtain review of the original denial of admission, petitioner thereafter sought to attack it before the Appellate Division on four successive occasions during the years 1943-1951 — all to no avail. Again, he sought no review of any of these proceedings, one of which involved a de novo hearing before the Character Committee, and in none does he appear to have raised the confrontation claim now made here.
Lack of confrontation seems to have been asserted for the first time in 1954, when petitioner again unsuccessfully moved the Appellate Division for leave to file a de novo application for admission. Leave to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals, sought then for the first time, was denied, and this Court in turn denied certiorari. 348 U. S. 955.
Finally in 1960 and 1961 petitioner twice more unsuccessfully moved the Appellate Division for leave to file a de novo application for admission, the latter proceeding being the one presently before the Court.

 In his petition initiating the present proceeding petitioner alleged that during the interviews held in connection with his original application the Chairman of the Character Committee promised him “a confrontation.” The record, however, discloses no such episode. Indeed at the third Committee hearing in 1938 petitioner was asked whether he had anything .further to present and he responded simply by referring to one of the affidavits submitted on his behalf purporting to refute the Wieder charge (note 1, supra). He made no request for confrontation.