Court Opinion

ID: 9796837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:06:35.842569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:50.171935
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
dissenting.
{1 Today's ruling-that certain respondent's communications with his client violated Rule 8. 4(e)1-offends the free speech guarantee of Art.2 § 22, Ok. Const.2 Respondent may not be disciplined for utterances that so clearly fall within the rubric of protected political speech.3 Section 22, whose *557language has an even broader sweep than that of the First Amendment,4 absolutely shields the expressions which form the basis of this proceeding.
2 I do not suggest that a lawyer may not be disciplined for soliciting, accepting or requesting a bribe. I would gladly join the court if these were indeed the facts in this case,. Itis one thing for a lawyer to state (or imply) to a client that he has the ability to influence a district attorney and then offer to do so; 4 is quite another for a lawyer not to rule out that a district attorney (or any other government official) might be subject to improper influences. There is no affirmative proof here that respondent ever intended to participate in any illegal conduct-a view which both the PRT panel and this court share. Respondent's failure firmly to reject the possibility of government corruption is undoubtedly protected by national and state free-speech guarantees. As a comment on the operation of governmental affairs, the matter plainly lies at the heart of political speech.5
13 By accepting a license to practice law, Bar members are required no more than to conduct themselves in a manner that is consistent with lawful behavior and be compatible with orderly administration of judicial process; 6 they are meither expected mor required to relinguish fundamental constitutional freedoms. The court's pronouncement imposes upon a licensed Oklahoma legal practitioner the affirmative duty to stand "four square" for the purity of eriminal law enforcement process and to whitewash it even when a doubt may exist. The lawyer is forced affirmatively to assert that all is well with the prosecutorial service; he is free meither to suspect nor to be apprehensive that, in fact, things are not so well, Implicit in the expected affirmations is the disturbing notion that lawyers must serve as enthusiastic cheerleaders for the government. I view § 22 as commanding the government to maintain the very same neutrality that the U.S. Supreme Court has found to be embodied in the First Amendment's protection of free expression.7 Had respondent been vocally denying the possibility of any corruption in the prosecutor's office, no disciplinary action would likely have followed and this case would not have been called to our attention.
14 By counseling the court that respondent's comments are indeed shielded, I do not mean to condone his failure affirmatively to state that he would not participate in any improper action. What I emphatically and firmly advance is that professional discipline should not be invoked to chill free speech. Today's opinion places a higher burden on a practitioner than any licensed legal professional may be required to bear in the constitutional order of our free society.
15 Lawyers are not government mouthpieces to be programmed for incantation of an absolution mantra that will sanctify officialdom in power8 The court's pronouncement reduces them to the very same status they were forced to endure in the most repressive totalitarian regimes of yesteryear's Europe. I cannot countenance a decisional *558course that turns the Bar into mindless champions for government-dictated orthodoxy.

. The pertinent terms of the Rules of Professional Conduct, 5 0.$.1991 Ch. 1, App. 3-A, include:
"It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to: . state or imply an ability to influence improperly a government agency or official;"

. The terms of Art. 2 § 22, Ok. Const., provide:
Every person may freely speak, write, or publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press." "* * *

. State ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Ass'n v. Porter, 1988 OK 114, 766 P.2d 958, 970, (Opala, Justice, concurring in judgment). In the same context *557see In re Snyder, 472 U.S. 634, 646-47, 105 S.Ct. 2874, 2882, 86 L.Ed.2d 504 (1985).
For an analysis of the balance between attorneys' speech and First Amendment rights see The First Amendment and Attorney Discipline for Criticism of the Judiciary: Let the Lawyer Beware, 15 N.Ky.L.Rev. 129 (1988).

. Gaylord Entertainment Co. v. Thompson, 1998 OK 30, ¶ 13, 958 P.2d 128, 139.

. "Political speech is .. any expression concerning the ideas and art of governing." Gaylord Entertainment Co. v. Thompson, supra note 4 at ¶ 14, 958 P.2d at 139. "Political speech" is the term used to encompass all of "those activities of thought and communication by which we govern." See Alexander Meiklejohn, The First Amendment is an Absolute, 1961 SUP.CT.REV. 245, 255.

. - In re Snyder, supra note 3.

. R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 LEd.2d 305 (1992); Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 109 S.Ct 2533, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989).

. "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 1187, 87 L.Rd. 1628 (1943).