Court Opinion

ID: 9940169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-13 17:16:05.083496+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:42:39.117216
License: Public Domain

Although I agree with my colleagues that petitioner should be disbarred, I write separately to ensure that certain language in the court's opinion is not misinterpreted. *Page 504 
Petitioner relies on Segretti v. State Bar (1976) 15 Cal.3d 878
[126 Cal.Rptr. 793, 544 P.2d 929], to support his assertion that discipline is unwarranted here because his criminal conviction and resulting imprisonment constituted sufficient punishment. In discussing Segretti, the majority state that "unlike the situation in Segretti and cases cited therein, petitioner did not show that after he committed his offenses he `recognized their wrongfulness, expressed regret, and cooperated with the investigating agencies.' [Citation.] While he points to his `candor and cooperation' before the bar, he can make no such claim as to his conduct during the criminal investigation." (Majority opn., ante, at p. 503.) This language arguably implies that failure, during a criminal investigation, to waive the privilege against self-incrimination can be used against an attorney in a subsequent disciplinary proceeding. This is not true.
The Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination guarantees "the right of a person to remain silent unless he chooses to speak in the unfettered exercise of his own will, andto suffer no penalty . . . for such silence." (Malloy v.Hogan (1964) 378 U.S. 1, 8 [12 L.Ed.2d 653, 659 84 S.Ct. 1489], italics added.) The United States Supreme Court has held that the term "penalty" as used in this context is not limited to fine or imprisonment but includes "the imposition of any sanction which makes assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege `costly.'" (Spevack v. Klein (1967) 385 U.S. 511, 514-515 [17 L.Ed.2d 574, 577, 87 S.Ct. 625]; see also Griffin v. California
(1965) 380 U.S. 609, 614 [14 L.Ed.2d 106, 109, 85 S.Ct. 1229].)
Assertion of the privilege is certainly costly if refusal to testify or cooperate in criminal proceedings can be used by the State Bar as an aggravating factor in determining discipline. Therefore, although cooperation in an underlying criminal proceeding has occasionally been cited by this court as a mitigating factor in State Bar disciplinary proceedings (see Inre Cohen (1974) 11 Cal.3d 416, 422 [113 Cal.Rptr. 485,521 P.2d 477]; In re Higbie (1972) 6 Cal.3d 562, 574 [99 Cal.Rptr. 865,493 P.2d 97]; Segretti v. State Bar, supra, 15 Cal.3d at p. 888, fn. 5 [testimony under grant of use immunity]), refusal to cooperate cannot, consistent with the Fifth Amendment, be considered as a factor in aggravation. Today's opinion is in keeping with that rule. *Page 505