Court Opinion

ID: 9785906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:47:00.339952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:20.365844
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
dissenting.
¶ 1 If Anglo-American forensic tradition for dispassionate judicature is to carry the day in this cause, the driving force of evenhanded process that is due this long-pardoned ex-felon must prevail over any lingering residue of instinctively harbored doubt, fear, suspicion and distrust. These thinly veiled instincts (1) tend to overfocus on the gravity of the crime which had transformed the petitioner into a convicted felon and (2) help generate a resolve of visiting upon him a lifetime banishment from relicensure. The very presence of these instincts continues adversely to affect the basic fairness of the decisional process for petitioner’s reinstatement. This court’s de novo review should cast them aside to concentrate instead on the many decades of his unblemished, if not also exemplary, life as a pardoned citizen of this State.
¶2 I am hence unable to join in today’s response to the petitioner’s repeated plea for re-admission to the State Bar.