Court Opinion

ID: 9708989
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:37:18.800429+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:45.168308
License: Public Domain

Digges, J,

concurring.

As David H.’s showing of rehabilitation here is no more persuasive than that I thought legally insufficient in the case of In re Application of Allan S., 282 Md. 683, 695, 387 A. 2d 271, 278 (1978), decided by this Court just a few months ago, I find myself in agreement with the majority that this applicant, as a matter of law, has not met the heavy burden which rests upon him to demonstrate his rehabilitation so as to warrant receiving our permission to practice law in *642Maryland. This, however, is the limit of my concurrence with the majority’s rationale, for their attempt to distinguish this case factually from Allan S. is not only wholly inadequate but also serves to point up all the more clearly the unfortunate character of that decision.
If anything, a comparison of the factual circumstances underlying the majority decision in Allan S. with those involved here indicates that this applicant presented a better, albeit inadequate, case for admission to the Bar of this State. The applicant in Allan S. admitted engaging twice in petty thievery, once while a college student and again after graduation from law school. The Board of Law Examiners, convinced that his rationalization of the second theft — characterized by Allan S. as a symbolic act in his testimony before the Board — was a false front unworthy of belief, recommended that the applicant not be admitted. Nevertheless, this Court rejected that recommendation and authorized him to practice law in this State. By way of contrast, although the crimes committed by David H. were of a somewhat more serious nature, their commission occurred when he was younger and therefore probably more immature than Allan S. Further, this applicant’s criminal spree came to an end prior to his entry into law school, an indication that, in contrast to Allan S., the study of law may have made some impression upon him about the illegality, if not immorality, of thievery. It should also be pointed out that the Board of Law Examiners found David H. to be candid and forthright in admitting the moral error of his transgressions, an accolade they specifically declined to bestow upon Allan S. Finally, the Board in this case found the applicant had been sufficiently rehabilitated after a period of time equal to that which came between Allan S.’s last criminal escapade and the Board’s unfavorable recommendation there.1
Faced with this factual dilemma, it is not surprising that the majority here, in struggling to distinguish Allan S., prefer *643to disregard almost completely the basis for the Court’s decision in that case and instead seize upon and apply the reasoning of the dissent, which they ignored in deciding Allan S., concerning repetition of the applicant’s criminal acts. In this regard, the majority stands on a very weak reed. In my view, without more, the mere passage of time between the offenses committed by Allan S. did not vitiate the doubts which the nature of his criminal acts inherently raised about his fitness to practice law in this State. As I see it, little distinction exists between a recidivist thief who commits his crimes in rapid fire order and one who prefers to spread his illegal activities intermittently over a period of time; if anything, the former may be able to demonstrate rehabilitation more readily than the latter.
While I recognize that no two cases are factually identical, it seems evident from the majority’s strained efforts to distinguish David H.’s activities from those of Allan S. that the Court, as a result of its erroneous decision in Allan S., is now plunging headlong into a “Serbonian Bog” from which it is unlikely to emerge with any logical or reasoned line of analysis for dealing with candidates for admission to the bar who have engaged in criminal activities involving “dishonesty, fraud, or deceit.” Maryland St. Bar Ass’n v. Agnew, 271 Md. 543, 550, 318 A. 2d 811, 815 (1974). Surely, as a result of the Court’s articulated reasons for these two decisions, uncertainty will now exist, both for the Board of Law Examiners and for candidates for admission, as to the extent an applicant can engage in activities outside the purview of the law and still be certified by this Court as sufficiently trustworthy to provide legal representation to the citizens of this State. Until there is a greater showing of rehabilitation than is present in either Allan S. or in this case, I repeat that I, for one, am “not willing to take the responsibility for asserting to the public that a petty thief is as worthy of trust as anyone else, so that a client should freely entrust him with his monies and affairs.” In re Application of Allan S., supra, 282 Md. at 694, 387 A. 2d at 277. As I would now give this Court’s decision in Allan S. a *644silent burial without eulogy, I can only concur in the result reached by the majority here.
Judge Smith has authorized me to say that the views here expressed are likewise his views.

. Additionally, I see no significance in the majority’s suggestion that, because David H.’s criminal activities occurred after his arrest for a crime for which he was not found guilty, he is somehow more culpable than was Allan S. who likewise did not profit from the traumatic experience of undergoing a prior arrest.