Court Opinion

ID: 9496626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:31:08.990115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:41.498875
License: Public Domain

BYE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
For the first time, this court follows the well-settled precedent of other circuits and concludes the federal district courts must observe their own disciplinary rules when sanctioning lawyers for violations of ethical standards. See Weissman v. Quail Lodge, Inc., 179 F.3d 1194, 1198-99 (9th Cir.1999); United States v. Stoneberger, 805 F.2d 1391, 1393 (9th Cir.1986); Matter of Thalheim, 853 F.2d 383, 386 (5th Cir.1988); and Matter of Abrams, 521 F.2d 1094, 1104-1105 (3d Cir.1975). In doing so, however, the majority also regrettably determines it was harmless error for the *639district courts to ignore their own local rules in the instant case.
In respectfully dissenting from such a holding, I review the process by which Allen W. Bird lost his privilege to practice law in the Arkansas federal courts after 35 years in the legal profession and 27 years of bankruptcy practice. First, in a bankruptcy proceeding, the bankruptcy court found Mr. Bird breached his fiduciary duty to the debtors’ estates and committed fraud upon the bankruptcy court. Next, the court referred the matter to the appropriate Arkansas legal disciplinary authorities and, upon becoming dissatisfied with the progress or result of such investigation, lodged the complaint which initiated these parallel proceedings in the federal district courts. In turn, bypassing the procedural safeguards of the courts’ own rules, which guaranteed lawyer Bird the opportunity to address the courts in mitigation at a formal hearing, the district courts allowed him the opportunity to be heard by telephone.2
Because lawyer disciplinary proceedings are adversarial and quasi criminal in nature, In re Ruffalo, 390 U.S. 544, 551, 88 S.Ct. 1222, 20 L.Ed.2d 117 (1968), Thalheim, 853 F.2d at 388, they differ from civil proceedings in at least two respects. First, in disciplinary proceedings, the lawyer’s alleged misconduct must be proved by clear and convincing evidence, an evi-dentiary standard higher than the mere preponderance which suffices in civil actions. In re Medrano, 956 F.2d 101, 102 (5th Cir.1992) (reversing disbarment because the district court had based its findings on the preponderance standard).
Second, an attorney who is found to have violated his professional duties retains the right to address the court before it imposes discipline; in fact, even an attorney who commits gross and outrageous conduct in open court “should be heard before he is condemned.” Ex Parte Robinson, 86 U.S. (19 Wall.) 505, 512-13, 22 L.Ed. 205 (1873). In our own court, we have insisted upon a lawyer facing disbarment must be heard in mitigation even when the facts underlying the lawyer’s misconduct are not in dispute. See Matter of Jones, 506 F.2d 527, 529 (8th Cir.1974) (remanding for a second disbarment hearing to ensure attorney convicted of a felony by the same court had opportunity to speak in mitigation). See also Groppi v. Leslie, 404 U.S. 496, 504, 92 S.Ct. 582, 30 L.Ed.2d 632 (1972) (recalling even those who commit contempt under the court’s eye have been given the opportunity to speak in the nature of a right of allocution); Eash v. Riggins Trucking, Inc., 757 F.2d 557, 571 (3d Cir.1985) (explaining attorney’s words in mitigation “will afford the judge adequate time to evaluate the propriety of the particular sanction in light of the offending attorney’s explanation as well as to consider alternatives.”).
As I read them, the Model Rules, from which the district courts adopted as their own the lawyer disciplinary rules, embody these procedural safeguards. First, in requiring the courts to refer disciplinary complaints to counsel “for investigation and the prosecution of a formal disciplinary proceeding,” Rule V(A) contemplates an adversarial and quasi-criminal process by which the accused lawyer can put counsel to the burden of proving the alleged *640misconduct by the higher evidentiary standard.3 Likewise, Rule V(D) requires disciplinary proceedings against a lawyer culminate in a “prompt hearing before one or more judges” of the court, not only when the lawyer raises an issue of fact, but also whenever “the respondent-lawyer wishes to be heard in mitigation.”
Moreover, the hierarchical scheme of the Model Rules reflects the essential character of these procedural safeguards. Three types of reports may trigger lawyer discipline: Another court’s order imposing discipline, a certificate of criminal conviction, or a complaint such as the one involved here. When acting upon the first, the district courts may impose so-called reciprocal discipline without providing the procedural safeguards; after all, another court has already treated the underlying conduct as a disciplinary matter, and ushering out these protections again would amount to mere formality. When acting upon a certificate of conviction, in contrast, the district courts still need not to refer the matter to counsel, as the lawyer’s conduct has already been the subject of prosecution under a heightened evidentiary standard, but must now give the lawyer the opportunity to be heard in mitigation. Finally, where the lawyer has not enjoyed the safeguards in prior proceedings and his misconduct necessarily comes to the attention of the court as a complaint, the Model Rules require the district courts to BOTH refer the matter to counsel AND hold a formal hearing. The Rules make no exception for complaints of civil wrongs.
In this vein, the majority’s harmless-error analysis vitiates an entire branch of the Model Rules’s disciplinary scheme. To explain, where a court receives a certificate of conviction, it “shall ... refer the matter to counsel for the institution of a disciplinary proceeding before the [cjourt in which the sole issue to be determined shall be the extent of the final discipline to be imposed as a result of the conduct resulting in the conviction.” Model Federal Rules of Disciplinary Enforcement 1(D). If it is harmless error to deny lawyer Bird the opportunity to be heard in allocution, it is difficult to imagine when it would not be harmless error to deny such opportunity to a lawyer previously convicted of a serious crime.
Along these lines, the majority’s harmless-error analysis is also irreconcilable with our own precedent. In Jones, the district court disbarred a lawyer who had been convicted of the felony of filing false income tax returns. Though the attorney had been tried and convicted in the same court, the district court held a separate disbarment hearing on the merits, and the lawyer presented no mitigating evidence. Nevertheless, to ensure the lawyer had the benefit of a “full hearing,” we remanded the case with instructions the district court permit the lawyer “to present any evidence of mitigation ... that he desire[dj.” 506 F.2d at 529.
With the foregoing in mind, one need not exalt form over substance to conclude the district courts should have followed the Model Rules. True, the bankruptcy court *641had adjudicated the facts and Mr. Bird agreed with its findings, but, where so much was at stake, Mr. Bird had the due process right to hold the disciplinary authorities to the burden of proving his conduct amounted to an ethics violation under the higher clear and convincing standard that applies in disciplinary proceedings. See Medrano, 956 F.2d at 102 (holding party moving for disbarment bears burden of proving all elements of an ethics violation by clear and convincing evidence). If shown to have violated his professional duties, lawyer Bird then also deserved the opportunity to present defenses and entreat the courts for a lighter penalty than the full revocation of his privilege to practice law. In short, the deprivation of the procedural safeguards worked prejudice upon Mr. Bird’s defense to the disciplinary charges, and under these circumstances, I cannot agree the district courts’ failure to follow the Model Rules was harmless error.
It needs saying that Rule X of the Model Rules required the district courts to refer the complaint to the state’s disciplinary agency, the same body with whom Mr. Bird, in the parallel state proceedings, reached a settlement suspending him for a year. “In the United States, admission to the bar and discipline of attorneys is peculiarly within the province of the states,” Abrams, 521 F.2d at 1105 (Rosenn, J., concurring), and “disciplinary proceedings are best reserved to [the states’] independent bodies which have been created to investigate charges of unprofessional conduct and to prosecute disciplinary proceedings.” Crayton, 192 B.R. at 977-978. See also In re Dreier, 258 F.2d 68, 69-70 (3d Cir.1958) (remanding district court’s denial of admission to its bar so court could give due deference to state’s finding attorney possessed fitness to practice). Despite its traditional stewardship over disciplinary matters and despite acting upon the same bankruptcy record and complaint as the district courts, the state agency here determined a temporary suspension was appropriate under all the circumstances. Evidently, as far as the state of Arkansas was concerned, it was not a foregone conclusion the facts emerging from the bankruptcy hearing would result in lawyer Bird’s disbarment.4
Ultimately, the district courts’ actions and the majority’s position reflect poorly upon the federal judiciary itself. The district courts adopted the Model Rules. The practicing bar should therefore be allowed to proceed with the confidence and the assurance courts will follow the rules they themselves did adopt and can freely amend. See Thalheim, 853 F.2d at 390. It takes an exquisite talent for irony for the courts to punish a rule breaker with one hand while they break their own rules with the other. Such inconsistency should not be allowed to prevail in modern-day court/lawyer interface. Thus, this dissent.

. I note the majority bases its harmless-error analysis on the bankruptcy proceedings, not the telephone conference between Mr. Bird's attorney and the district courts. Indeed, a thorough and fair reading of the transcript reveals such conference did not advance past the procedural impasse in which the judges insisted the conference sufficed as an opportunity to be heard while lawyer Bird insisted the courts must refer the matter to counsel pursuant to Rule V of the courts’ own rules.

. Indeed, the Model Rules and case law suggest it is improper for the court receiving a complaint of misconduct to both prosecute and adjudicate the complaint. As the preamble to the Model Rules states regarding the court’s duty to supervise the attorneys practicing in its bar, "the proper discharge of that duty requires that the [cjourt have the assistance of counsel to investigate and prosecute where there are appropriate allegations ...." See Statement of Need for Adopting, Model Federal Rules of Disciplinary Enforcement. See also In re Crayton, 192 B.R. 970, 978 (9th Cir. BAP 1996) (explaining that referral to counsel relieves a court from the awkward role of serving as both prosecutor and arbiter in disciplinary matters).

. The parallel state and federal proceedings against Mr. Bird also raise serious concerns for the judiciary. For one, by issuing disparate penalties for the same conduct, the state and federal courts implicitly call into considerable question the regularity and reliability of each such disciplinary system. See Abrams, 521 F.2d at 1105-06 (Rosenn, J., concurring).