Court Opinion

ID: 9543968
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:51:01.298498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:37.128392
License: Public Domain

Digges, J.,

dissenting

I had looked forward with pleasurable anticipation to penning my final words as a member of this Court in an opinion considering a much more tranquil subject than is involved here, and one expressing the unanimous views of my colleagues, each of whom I hold in the highest esteem. However, such is not to be, for I am so appalled by the action the Court takes today in rolling out a red carpet in order that an unpardoned armed bank robber may tread smoothly on his way to becoming a member of the Bar of this State, that I am impelled to raise a loud voice, albeit an expiring one, in protest. This revulsion to the action of the majority here is not an aberration on my part, for I have consistently *399expressed similar views in the past1; it has merely been intensified to the point of shock when I contemplate that an applicant who has committed such a dastardly crime as armed robbery is soon to become a member of the Maryland Bar. In my dissenting remarks in In re Application of Allan, S., I wrote:
Since the time of Moses, if not before, "Thou shall not steal” has been understood as one of our basic legal and moral tenents. The majority nevertheless apparently believes that there is no great harm in having a thief or two [and now, I must sadly add, an armed robber or two] admitted to the Maryland Bar.... With its action, I believe the Court takes a giant leap backward, abdicating its high responsibility to assure the public that nothing in the background of an applicant for bar membership has been discovered to reasonably indicate that the prospective attorney might not be possessed of the basic qualities of honor traditionally associated with members of the bar of this State. [282 Md. 683, 693, 387 A.2d 271, 277 (1978) (citations and footnote omitted).]
*400The right to membership in the legal profession is not one that adheres to every citizen as does the right to engage in an ordinary trade or business. It is a unique privilege extended only to those who demonstrate that they have ascended a special plateau with respect to both moral character and intellectual attainment. And, if forced to choose between the two, moral character, in my view, is of greater importance to the public and to the proper administration of justice than is legal learning. Learning may be acquired in later years by diligent study; but if an applicant comes to the bar with bad moral character, he is likely to retain it, for an inherent behavioral trait is less susceptible to change than is a person’s level of knowledge attainment. Moreover, once admitted to the bar, an attorney is subject to far less intense official scrutiny concerning his character than that which occurs during the application process. Thus, an inadequate screening at this stage presents the potential to cause untold misery to the public and to sour its view of the legal profession in general as well as the administration of justice in particular. The moral character required of every lawyer of this State was summarized by a unanimous Court in Maryland St. Bar Ass’n v. Agnew, 271 Md. 543, 548-49, 318 A.2d 811, 814 (1974) using the following words which have equal significance whether applied in a disbarment (as was Agnew) or in an application for initial admission proceeding:
[LJittle else benefits the legal community more from repetition than does a recitation of an attorney’s high moral obligation. ...
"No man can ever be a truly great lawyer, who is not in every sense of the word, a good man... . There is no profession in which moral character is so soon fixed as in that of the law; there is none in which it is subjected to severer scrutiny by the public.... From the very commencement of a lawyer’s career, let him cultivate, above all things, truth, simplicity and candor; they are the cardinal virtues of a lawyer.” G. Sharswood, Professional Ethics, 168, 169 (1844).
*401Few vocations offer as great a spectrum for good and honorable works as does the legal profession. The attorney is entrusted with the life savings and investments of his clients. He becomes the guardian of the mentally deficient, and potential savior for the accused. He is a fiduciary, a confidant, an advisor, and an advocate. However, the great privilege of serving in all of these capacities does not come without the concomitant responsibilities of truth, candor and honesty.... The administration of justice under our adversary system largely depends upon the public’s ability to rely on the honesty of attorneys who are placed in a position of being called upon to conduct the affairs of others both in and out of court.
This grave responsibility to protect the public trust rests ultimately on our shoulders, for we, largely at our own direction, assumed the task years ago and we should not take it lightly.
In this case, we are faced with an applicant who committed armed robbery while an adult. He and two other men, having carefully planned the crime, travelled from Baltimore to a rural area of Virginia and robbed a bank, using a sawed off shotgun to terrorize those present. Upon conviction in federal court, G.L.S. received a sentence of 10 years imprisonment under conditions that would have permitted release for good behavior at any time. The record discloses that, rather than taking advantage of this act of leniency, the applicant created such a prison disciplinary problem that he spent time in solitary confinement, was transferred to increasingly more secure prisons, was, because of his conduct, denied parole on "more than five occasions,” and finally, was not released until he had served 6Vz years. In my view, when the applicant is shown to be a convicted armed robber, one of the more heinous crimes known to our law, or guilty of any other crime of that ilk, my answer to the query — "Whether after the conduct of this man, it is proper that he should [become] a member of [the *402legal] profession” 2 is emphatically no, or at least, almost never. There must be offenses so serious that the applicant committing them cannot again satisfy the court that he has become trustworthy; if there are such crimes, this is surely one of them. See In re Keenan, 314 Mass. 544, 50 N.E.2d 785, 788 (1943). Moreover, in this case, the sordid nature of the applicant’s act alone need not provide the only basis for precluding bar admission, for the Board found that he had been less than candid, if not blantantly deceitful, by not revealing his conviction and imprisonment in answers to questions concerning prior addresses and criminal proceedings in the very application for bar admission addressed to this Court which we now consider. And, when the applicant was confronted with this obvious fact, the examiners also found "unpersuasive” his explanation to them, made under oath, that he had filled out the application in a hurry with no time to complete this aspect of the form.3 The majority glosses over these facts by pointing out that G.L.S. had made full disclosure of his criminal past in his application for admission to law school. This is irrelevant here, for it fails to answer the serious matter of non-disclosure to this Court, which ultimately bears the responsibility to protect the public by screening bar applicants, not the law school. The majority also weakly points out that G.L.S. provided sufficient hints in his answer to "alert the Committee to the need for further investigation and inquiry” into his sordid past. This is far from enough. The application on its face requires complete disclosure, and this Court or its Board should not be required to search the form with a magnifying glass for clues indicating that there should be a more searching inquiry into the applicant’s past. I have already pointed out that, in my view, "[t]otal frankness throughout the application procedures is ... a sine qua non for admission to the Bar.” In Re Application of Allan S., 282 Md. *403683, 697, 387 A.2d 271, 279 (1978) (Digges, J., dissenting). I do not stand alone in this regard, for Chief Judge Murphy, expressing the majority view in Allan S., supra, also explained that "[w]hile there is no litmus test by which to determine whether an applicant for admission to the Bar possesses good moral character, we have said that no moral character qualification for Bar membership is more important than truthfulness and candor.” Allan S., supra, 282 Md. at 689, 387 A.2d at 275. As G.L.S. has been shown here to be veraciously lacking, he should not be permitted to add his name to the rolls of the Bar of this State — a bar which, from the mid-seventeenth century, has enjoyed such an illustrious stature.4 See e.g., In Re Application of K.B., 291 Md. 170, 434 A.2d 541 (1981).
Thus, today’s decision, in effect, reduces the oft stated requirement that members of the bar possess high morals at admission, and retain them thereafter, to a mere platitude, lacking in substance, delivered as commencement day rhetoric upon graduation from law school or bar admission ceremonies. Great efforts have been expended by the legal profession generally and this Court, with the aid of the General Assembly, in recent years to bolster the people’s trust and confidence in their courts and the attorneys which, in our adversary system, are necessary to service them. Having been invested with responsibility for the regulation of admission to the bar, this Court created an elaborate network of investigators under the aegis of the character committee to screen the moral integrity of new applicants, while the Board evaluates both character and intellectual ability of prospective bar admittees. Once an attorney is admitted to practice in this State, he must abide by the Code *404of Professional Responsibility which we adopted several years ago; we established the Attorney Grievance Commission to ferret out and prosecute disciplinary actions against any attorney who fails to abide by its precepts. And finally, we have created a client security trust fund supported by mandatory contributions from members of the bar, which has gained national recognition, to reimburse those who have been victimized by the few unscrupulous lawyers. If our recent cases such as Allan S., supra, and In Re Application of Howard C., 286 Md. 244, 407 A.2d 1124 (1979), did not, then this decision and those which because of its precedent will inevitably follow in its wake certainly constitute giant steps toward nullifying the worthy objectives of the various measures just articulated. Let us not forget that whenever there is a clash between what best serves the interest of the individual applicant and that of the public, the individual interest must be put aside. The majority in this opinion and in similar others has misconceived their public duty by engaging in a weighing process, comparing the applicant’s good deeds with his bad and "rewarding” him with bar admission when they think the scales are tipped in his favor, while at the same time completely ignoring the paramount public interest. We have moved much too far in recent years from promptly acting to prevent any unscrupulous persons from practicing law in this State (including one who placed slugs in parking meters, see Fellner v. Bar Ass’n, 213 Md. 243, 131 A.2d 729 (1957) to admitting such persons — first the petty thieves and now, armed robbers. I fear this case portends the admission in the not too distant future of not only thieves and robbers but also kidnappers, terrorists, rapists, and murderers unless the trend it represents is checked. Although I will not be present to lend a voice in aid of reversing this unfortunate new pattern, others, hopefully, will succeed where I have today failed.
Judges Smith and Rodowsky authorize me to state that they join in the views expressed herein.

. See In Re Application of K.B.. 291 Md. 170, 434 A.2d 541 (1981) (opinion by Rodowsky, J., joined by Digges, J.) (applicant pleaded guilty to credit card fraud two weeks after applying for admission to Maryland Bar); In Re Application of A.T., 286 Md. 507, 516, 408 A.2d 1023, 1028 (1979) (Digges, J., concurring in dissent of Smith, J.) (applicant, previously addicted to various narcotics, committed numerous thefts and drug possession offenses); In Re Application of Howard C., 286 Md. 244, 245, 407 A.2d 1124, 1124 (1979) (Digges, J., concurring in dissent of Smith, J.) (applicant committed two shoplifting offenses, one during college and one during law school); In Re Application of David H., 283 Md. 632, 641, 392 A.2d 83, 88 (1978) (Digges, J., concurring) (applicant admitted to shoplifting and breaking into automobiles on numerous occasions); In Re Application of Allan S., supra, (Digges, J., dissenting) (applicant committed shoplifting on two occasions, one after graduation from law school); Maryland St. Bar Ass’n v. Agnew, 271 Md. 543, 318 A.2d 811 (1974) (opinion by Digges, J.) (member of Maryland Bar, shortly after resigning as Vice President of the United States, pleaded nolo contendere to income tax evasion); Bar Ass’n v. Marshall, 269 Md. 510, 307 A.2d 677 (1973) (opinion by Digges, J.) (attorney disbarred for misappropriating client funds); Balliet v. Balto. Co. Bar Ass’n, 259 Md. 474, 270 A.2d 465 (1970) (opinion by Digges, J.) (attorney disbarred after conviction of larceny after trust for converting a client’s funds to his own use).

. Ex parte Brownshall, 2 Cowp. 829 (1778), (opinion by Lord Mansfield).

. Of course, those who wrote letters on behalf of the applicant as well as the character committee were unaware at the time they vouched for his good character that the applicant was subsequently found by the Board of Law Examiners to be untruthful.

. In addition, the petitioner remains unpardoned for his crime. When asked why he had not sought from the President of the United States a pardon for his federal criminal act before applying for admission to the bar, the applicant responded that he had decided to pursue the bar admission first so that if successful, he would be able to use the fact as an aid in obtaining a pardon. In my view, the applicant has twisted his priorities in this respect, for this Court should entertain no request for bar admission or reinstatement while the applicant remains an unpardoned felon. See Maryland St. Bar Ass’n v. Boone, 255 Md. 420, 433-34, 258 A.2d 438, 444-45 (1969).