Court Opinion

ID: 9519657
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:21:29.506673+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:35.210853
License: Public Domain

Wilkins, J.
(concurring, with whom Abrams, J., joins). Although I agree with the disposition proposed in this matter and with most of the factual conclusions expressed in the opinion of the court, I believe that certain allegations were proved which some Justices of this court have not found to have been established. Specifically, I believe that Mr. Orfanello told the Chief Justice in their brief conversation in the afternoon of April 5, 1978, in some form of words, that the “gay” benefit at the Arlington Street Church was intended to raise funds to aid in the defense of certain criminal defendants. I am satisfied that the reference to the defense fund was brief and that its full import escaped the attention of the Chief Justice, who seemed concerned about how Mr. McMenimen learned that he was going to attend the meeting and about others advising him not to attend an event sponsored by a “gay” group. I agree with Justice Braucher’s characterization of the Chief Justice’s reaction to these friendly attempts to warn him.
On the following morning, the Chief Justice was acutely aware of the significance of what Mr. Orfanello told him the previous afternoon concerning a “defense fund.” I am persuaded that Mr. Orfanello told the Chief Justice about the use of ticket proceeds for the defense of criminal cases because on the next day the Chief Justice did not question Mr. Orfanello about, or challenge him for, not telling him that a “defense fund” was involved.
When the Chief Justice answered certain questions under oath in the course of his April 11 deposition, his testimony was incorrect. He had inquired what the Boston/Boise Committee was and had been told. He had been told that the meeting was intended to raise funds to assist in the defense of certain criminal defendants. In this respect, the Chief Justice was plainly mistaken. However, considering *732the form and context of the specific questions asked of the Chief Justice, and considering the Chief Justice’s very literal approach to questions, I conclude that he did not intentionally misrepresent facts when he testified under oath on April 11, 1978. He had heard something of the nature of the Boston/Boise Committee before attending the meeting but may well not have remembered his inquiry concerning it at the Arlington Street Church when he purchased the tickets. Although Mr. Orfanello told him that the meeting was a fund raiser for criminal defendants, I do not find that the Chief Justice received information concerning the use of the ticket proceeds of the precise character described in the applicable question put to him on April 11.
I believe that the press release of April 7, 1978, although literally true, was knowingly misleading. Perhaps, as he said, the Chief Justice “did not learn of the intended use of these funds until reading it in the press on April 6, 1978, the day following the lecture,” but he did hear one representative of the Boston/Boise Committee say at the meeting “most of this money will be going ... to the National Jury Project which has entered these cases in order to see that a fair trial can possibly exist.” The press release may have been, as the opinion of the court states, a measure taken to moderate the public reaction. It was, however, less than a frank and complete statement of what the Chief Justice had been told and what he knew.