Court Opinion

ID: 9564911
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:11:18.564282+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:14.980372
License: Public Domain

Justice EXUM
concurring in result.
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that under the facts as found by Judge Snepp, respondent was ethically required to withdraw from representing Edmisten. So far as these findings go, Edmisten did not perpetrate a fraud on the Court or anyone else after respondent became his counsel. He did nothing but plead not guilty at his own insistence against the advice of respondent. His choosing to so plead, a choice which he alone could make, did not of itself require respondent to withdraw. There is no finding that either Edmisten or respondent intended to offer an untruthful witness or that Edmisten himself intended to testify falsely. Clearly nothing of this sort transpired. So far as we know respondent properly advised Edmisten that all he was *652ethically permitted to do was to enter on Edmisten’s behalf a plea of not guilty and put the State to its proof. On this basis respondent was ethically permitted to continue his representation.
Before the attorney-client relationship arose between Ed-misten and respondent, however, Edmisten had engaged in fraudulent conduct. Edmisten advised respondent of this during the course of respondent’s representation. During the trial respondent positively counseled Edmisten that if the case against him were dismissed he “could thereafter admit he was the driver without incriminating himself.” This amounted to more assistance than respondent was required to give at that point to insure that Edmisten received a fair trial. This advice had the effect of assisting Edmisten in the fraud which he had committed prior to his having consulted respondent and which, respondent knew, might, through no fault of his own, intrude on the trial itself. In this, I think respondent ethically transgressed. I, therefore, concur in the result.