Court Opinion

ID: 9790515
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:54:12.916637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:35.099246
License: Public Domain

DUBOFSKY, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
The hearing board of the grievance committee recommended that the respondent, Joe Gordon McPhee, be suspended from the practice of law for nine months. A majority of the hearing panel of the grievance committee,1 reviewing the hearing board’s recommendation, voted to recommend a suspension for one year and one day. The majority recommendation was based on the belief that any lawyer suspended from the practice of law for conviction of a felony should be required to show rehabilitation, competence and fitness to practice law, as required by C.R.C.P. 241.-22, prior to reinstatement.2 C.R.C.P. 241.-22 applies to suspensions greater than one year.
The disciplinary prosecutor’s opening brief urges this court to impose a period of suspension through June 1, 1988. That date was chosen because it coincides with the end of the probationary period to which the defendant was sentenced as a result of his guilty pleas. Nevertheless, the majority concludes that the respondent’s conduct warrants a suspension for three years, a period of time almost double that requested by the disciplinary prosecutor and three times the length of that recommended by a majority of the hearing panel.
I believe that deference to the judgment and discretion of the grievance committee and the disciplinary prosecutor requires us to impose a suspension no greater than that sought by the prosecutor, see People v. Brown, 726 P.2d 638, 641 (Colo.1986) (Dubofsky, J., dissenting), and in most cases we should follow the recommendation of the hearing panel. I agree with the disciplinary prosecutor’s recommendation of a suspension until June 1, 1988, because the respondent has been convicted of two felonies and the period of probation to *1296which he was sentenced will have expired by June 1, 1988. The respondent has been suspended since July 22, 1985, and the net effect of following the disciplinary prosecutor’s recommendation will be a disciplinary suspension of nearly three years. Therefore, I dissent from the three year suspension ordered by the majority, a suspension that would continue until December, 1989.

. Five members of the hearing panel approved a suspension for one year and one day; three members of the panel adopted the hearing board’s recommendation of a nine month suspension; one member of the panel favored a three year suspension.

. After the respondent pled guilty to two felony counts, this court suspended him on July 22, 1985, under C.R.C.P. 241.16(d) for an indefinite period of time while disciplinary proceedings were pending against him. Subsequently, the respondent approached the disciplinary prosecutor seeking transfer to disability inactive status. The disciplinary prosecutor filed a petition for transfer to disability inactive status, based on psychiatric and psychological evaluation of the respondent by two psychiatrists and a clinical psychologist, and this court transferred the respondent to disability inactive status on April 29, 1986. At the same time, this court ordered that the disciplinary proceedings against the respondent go forward.
Because of the respondent’s disability inactive status, he must seek reinstatement under C.R. C.P. 241.23 regardless of the length of suspension imposed in the disciplinary proceeding. The majority recommended that the record of the disciplinary proceeding be reviewed in a C.R.C.P. 241.23 reinstatement proceeding. The dissenting members of the panel maintained that the majority's recommendation increasing the penalty to suspension for a year and a day was not because of the conduct involved but rather because of the majority’s concern about the respondent’s mental disability and present unfitness to practice law. The dissent argued that reinstatement procedures under C.R.C.P. 241.22 and 241.23 are separate, with different standards, and should not be mixed together.