Court Opinion

ID: 9727997
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:54:43.138348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:44.870018
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE MORAN, also dissenting: I agree with the rationale of the lead opinion, dissent from its decision that no discipline should be imposed, and am’ diametrically opposed to the totality of the joint special concurrence. Respondent’s conduct was, by his own admission, a violation of the disciplinary rules cited. To excuse his conduct because a conviction for bribery would otherwise be impossible would make the court not only a victim of respondent’s duplicity but also an advocate of the philosophy that a conviction by any means is the ultimate goal of our system of justice. That respondent might be excused because his motives were pure is an untenable defense, particularly when intent is not an element of the charge here raised against him. Without dwelling on my many differences with the concurring decision, it will suffice to say that, in my opinion, it not only condones respondent’s conduct but also lauds him for it and encourages it in others. Under the more palatable term “necessary,” it avoids stating its assention to the cliche that the end justifies the means. The concurrence finds a cure in respondent’s admission after the fact, yet confession does not eradicate the commission. In my view, the concurrence sets an intolerably dangerous precedent. While we must avoid the temptation of imposing idealistic but unrealistically high expectations on members of the profession merely because of that membership, we cannot content ourselves to expect less of the practitioner than that he be subject to the rules of conduct imposed on all citizens. Even without the criteria of the disciplinary rules, the public, the court and the profession have the right, minimally, to expect a valid, common-sense determination by the practitioner to discern right from wrong, and one need not be trained in the law to know that it is flatly unacceptable to prevaricate to or mislead the court or to be instrumental in encouraging others to do so. The lead opinion finds ameliorating the fact that respondent acted without the guidance of precedent or settled opinion. I am not so persuaded. The canopy of ethics must cover more than black-letter law or we are constrained to excuse all but those infractions so recorded, although it would be impossible to conceive of, much less enumerate, explicitly, every infraction possible. Respondent’s conduct is of the genre which has undermined the public’s confidence in the profession, in the courts and, ultimately, in the law. If the public finds it intolerable that a member of the profession can operate without the constraints of law, it can be no less intolerable to the court affronted by the conduct. The court must remain the ultimate forum of truth. Respondent’s conduct has disregarded that essential, and, in so critical a consideration, I do not believe that the court can condemn the act but excuse the actor. Under the mitigating circumstances of this case, I feel respondent should be censured.