Court Opinion

ID: 9648845
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:36:31.795561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:00.060493
License: Public Domain

REILLY, Chief Judge, Retired,
with whom NEBEKER and HARRIS, Associate Judges, join, dissenting:
I am disturbed by the grounds relied on by the majority in reversing the conviction in the case before us. At issue is the conduct of a lawyer who, when asked for comment on a request for appointment of new counsel by a defendant charged with possession of a handgun, explained to the court that his client’s real dissatisfaction with his representation was that he had advised the defendant that he would not put him on the stand to deny possession of the gun, as he was aware from his client’s previous admission to him that such testimony would amount to perjury.
When this case was originally argued before a division, Judge Harris and I — Judge Mack dissenting — voted to affirm the conviction, pointing out that since it is the duty of a trial judge when a defendant makes a pretrial challenge to the effectiveness of counsel “to conduct an inquiry to determine the truth and scope of defendant’s allegations,” Monroe v. United States, D.C.App., 389 A.2d 811, 820 cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1006, 99 S.Ct. 621, 58 L.Ed.2d 683 (1978); Thornton v. United States, D.C.App., 357 A.2d 429, cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1024, 97 S.Ct. 644, 50 L.Ed.2d 626 (1976), defense counsel was obliged to acquaint the court with facts sufficient to enable it to make an informed judgment. Hence we concluded that under the circumstances confronting counsel here, his disclosure of defendant’s real motive was not a valid reason for setting aside the conviction.1
In thus disposing of the case, we did not find it necessary except for a brief footnote reference to discuss the express limitations *857on the attorney-client privilege set forth m the Code of Professional Responsibility imposed by this court upon all lawyers practicing in this jurisdiction, although the relevant provisions of such Code would have reinforced our position. I refer particularly to the following excerpts from the disciplinary rule (DR 4-101) mandating the preservation of the confidences of a client:
(B) Except when permitted under DR 4-101(C), a lawyer shall not knowingly:
(1) Reveal a confidence or secret of his client.
(2) Use a confidence or secret of his client to the disadvantage of the client.
(3) Use a confidence or secret of his client for the advantage of himself or of a third person, unless the client consents after full disclosure.
(C) A lawyer may reveal:
* * * * * *
(3) The intention of his client to commit a crime and the information necessary to prevent the crime.
(4) Confidences or secrets necessary to establish or collect his fee or to defend himself or his employees or associates against an accusation of wrongful conduct. (Footnotes omitted; emphasis supplied.)
Nowhere in the text of the plurality opinion can any discussion of DR 4-101(C)(3) and (4) be found. As I read that opinion, it holds that in any criminal prosecution a defense counsel who reveals to the court the defendant’s intention to give false testimony improperly betrays the confidences of his client. Having adopted this view, the opinion sets aside the conviction on the premise that such disclosure deprived appellant of his constitutional right to due process of law. It is plain that such conclusion flies in the face of those provisions of the very rule promulgated by this court to govern the conduct of lawyers with respect to privileged communications.
Perjury is of course a crime in this jurisdiction.2 Thus it is apparent that if a defendant tells his counsel that despite his advice, his own trial strategem is to deny falsely under oath the commission of the act with which he is charged such defendant has an “intention ... to commit a crime.” It is equally apparent that the best way of providing “the information necessary to prevent the crime” is timely disclosure to the trial judge before the perjured testimony is actually offered.
In its opinion, the plurality comments upon the “ethical dilemma” confronting a defense counsel when his client confides to him an intention to commit perjury. This is not a dilemma over which counsel needs to agonize, however. The course for any lawyer aware of the relevant disciplinary rule previously quoted is precisely the one taken by counsel in this case. Indeed, had counsel been afforded an opportunity to engage in any research on the meaning of the rule, it is difficult to see how he could have made any other choice. While the text of DR 4-101(C) is couched in words which make disclosure of a confidence permissible rather than mandatory, i. e., “A lawyer may reveal:” — a footnote to subsection 101(C)(3) cites one situation where a lawyer must disclose:
ABA Opinions 314 (1965) . . . indicate^] that a lawyer must disclose even the confidences of his clients if “the facts in the attorney’s possession indicate beyond reasonable doubt that a crime will be committed.”3
It is submitted that this is the exact situation in which appellant’s counsel found himself. I do not understand my colleagues’ statement that “the record does not support an inference that defense counsel knew that his client was going to commit perjury.” The opinion says that he “knew only that his client had made inconsistent statements to him about the possession of the gun.” This is not completely accurate. It appears from what counsel *858said to the court that he also knew the police version of the incident — which was consistent with his client’s original private admission, that the defendant had expressed dissatisfaction with counsel’s plan of not putting him on the witness stand, and that such dissatisfaction prompted defendant to „demand a change of counsel. Counsel was aware that if he withdrew or was removed from the case the only obstacle to the accomplishment of defendant’s scheme of trial tactics would have been cleared away. In short, while counsel may not have been able to predict with certainty what the defendant would say on the witness stand, were a new lawyer appointed, he was privy to “the intention of his client,’’4 which was all that the applicable rule required.
The plurality opinion also disregards the thrust of DR 4-101(G)(4), which permits a lawyer to reveal a confidential communication “to defend himself . . . against an accusation of wrongful conduct.” It can scarcely be doubted that charges of neglect of a client’s interest and inadequate preparation for trial amount to an accusation of professional misconduct. Yet we are told that when counsel here felt compelled to resort to such disclosure in order to defend himself, he deprived his client of due process by failing to move the court to disqualify itself and certify the case to another judge for trial because the revelation was prejudicial to his client.
According to the opinion, had counsel in this case adopted this course of action (assuming such motion was granted) “there would have been no need for such inquiry” [i. e., an inquiry into the merits of a request for new counsel]. This conclusion not only ignores the fact that whatever prejudice to the defendant occurred here was self-inflicted, but also our holding in Thornton v. United States, supra, that it is error for a judge before whom á motion for counsel withdrawal was pending to direct a second judge to whom the case was transferred for trial, to refrain from inquiring into the grounds for the motion.
Instead of appraising defense counsel’s conduct in light of our own disciplinary rules, the opinion suggests that the procedure counsel should have followed if he knew that his client proposed to take the stand and give perjured testimony was to follow the course recommended in ¶7.7 of the American Bar Association; Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function and the Defense Function, viz., to advise his client against testifying, but if the latter insisted, then to move to withdraw and if withdrawal were not granted, to permit the defendant to testify without direct examination and to refrain from reciting or relying upon the false testimony in closing argument to the jury. The majority cites our decisions in the Thornton case, supra, and in Johnson v. United States, D.C.App., 404 A.2d 162 (1979), as “implicit holdings” to that effect. But in neither case did this court hold that such conduct, rather than disclosure under Rule 4~101(G)(3) or (4), was the preferred course of action for a lawyer whose client presented him with such a dilemma.
In Thornton, we merely held compliance with Standard 7.7 did not deprive the defendant of effective assistance, and in Johnson that it was not the province of a trial judge to impose the Standard upon defense counsel. Moreover, it would seem obvious that when trial counsel is faced with the “dilemma” to which the opinion adverts, he should resolve it by looking to the rules of this court rather than the recommendations of a nonjudicial organization, no matter how respected.
In view of the esteem accorded the ABA Standard by the majority opinion, one further comment seems appropriate. A defense counsel who follows this recommendation sends a signal to the trial judge that in his opinion the defendant is giving perjured testimony. Thus there is some truth to the observation of the court in Lowery v. Cardwell, 575 F.2d 727 (9th Cir. 1978), cited with approval by the plurality, that a lawyer who complied with the first step in the *859recommended ABA procedure thereby informed the trier of facts that his client’s testimony was false.5 But to say, as that court did in setting aside a conviction under collateral attack, that “if in [fact] the defendant has committed perjury she does not by that falsehood forfeit her right to a fair trial” comes dangerously close to holding that a defendant in a criminal case has a right to lie. The Supreme Court has emphasized that no such right exists:
Every criminal defendant is privileged to testify in his own defense, or to refuse to do so. But that privilege cannot be construed to include the right to commit perjury. [Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 225, 91 S.Ct. 643, 645, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971).]
We, of course, are not bound by decisions of the United States courts of appeal for the various circuits, with the exception- of the holdings of the District of Columbia Circuit handed down prior to February 1, 1971.6 Hence, it is startling to find our court adopting the rationale of a case which rests on a premise repudiated by the highest court of the nation. It is equally difficult to support some of the dicta in an opinion of the Third Circuit, upon which the majority also relies, United States ex rel. Wilcox v. Johnson, 555 F.2d 115, 122 (1977), although the facts of that case are distinguishable from the case now before us.7
Unlike the plurality opinion here, Wilcox refrained from holding that a counsel’s disclosure of an intended perjury amounted to a breach of confidence. On this point, the court remarked:
Whether an attorney representing a defendant in a criminal case must, or indeed may, disclose his client’s intention to perjure himself is an extremely complex question which has been addressed by a number of courts and commentators. [Id. at 122.]
In a footnote, the only court decision cited was State v. Henderson, 205 Kan. 231, 468 P.2d 136 (1970), in which the Kansas Supreme Court decided that an attorney was permitted to disclose a client’s intention to commit perjury. With respect to “commentators”, the court added another footnote:
See, e. g., J. Michael Callan and Harris David, Professional responsibility and the Duty of Confidentiality: Disclosure of Client Misconduct in an Adversary System, 29 Rutgers L.Rev. 332 (1976) (disclosure should not be made since to do so would be tantamount to disclosing that the client is guilty of the crime charged); M. Freedman, Lawyers' Ethics in an Adversary System 3-4 (1975). Compare, ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice: The Prosecution Function and the Defense Function, Defense Function § 7.7(c) (1971) (attorney should not disclose client’s intention) with ABA Code of Professional Responsibility and Canons of Judicial Ethics, DR 4-101(C)(3), at 17 (disclosure should be made).
It appears from an examination of these writings that the principal arguments against the duty of disclosure have been developed in Professor Freedman’s “Lawyers’ Ethics in an Adversary System,” which asserts the inviolability of the trust of confidentiality [or attorney-client communications] under all circumstances. A well-reasoned critique of this book, however, depicts the author’s “view of eonfiden-*860tiality as a distorted mirror of reality,”8 as it ignores or glosses over the numerous limitations upon the scope of the privilege. Disputing his thesis that the provisions of Rule 4-101(C)(3) of the Code do not require a lawyer to reveal the commission of an intended crime, the reviewer points out:
Freedman has read the “must” language of the Code’s footnote to mean “may.” And his absolutist view of confidentiality in turn has required him to read the “may” language of Disciplinary Rule 4-101(C)(3) to be meaningless.
Under the Code and this footnote, one might think the attorney would be obliged to exercise his discretion and disclose confidences when the client has told the attorney that, if called to the stand, he will commit the crime of perjury. Instead of offering his crabbed interpretation of Disciplinary Rule 4-101(C)(3), Freedman might have argued that a defendant’s perjury in his own defense in a criminal case is a special type of crime that should not be included within the meaning of Disciplinary Rule 4-101(B)(3). Even so, the very existence of the special rights accorded a defendant whose liberties are at stake — appointed counsel, the fifth amendment privilege, jury trial, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and others- — militates against adding the right to compel counsel to allow the client to perjure himself and even ethically require the counsel to argue the client’s false story to the jury. (Footnote omitted.)
While the plurality opinion here does not suggest that counsel should urge a jury to believe false testimony, its thrust would indeed compel counsel to allow his client to perjure himself.
It is interesting to note that the controversy among the commentators and the draftsmen of the Criminal Justice Standards has received the attention of the Commission appointed by the American Bar Association to revise the Code of Professional Responsibility.9 In discussing proposed rules requiring candor of lawyers toward the tribunal if false evidence has been offered in behalf of the client, the Commission reporter observes that whether the same duty of disclosure applies to an advocate for a criminal defendant has been “intensely debated.” Taking account of three different recommendations for a resolution of the dilemma confronting a lawyer when the defendant insists upon giving false testimony, the reporter makes the following comment:10
Three resolutions of this dilemma have been proposed. One is to permit the accused to testify by a narrative without guidance through the lawyer’s questioning. This compromises both contending principles; it exempts the lawyer from the duty to disclose false evidence but subjects the client to an implicit disclosure of information imparted to counsel. Another suggested resolution, of relatively recent origin, is that the advocate be entirely excused from the duty to reveal perjury if the perjury is that of the client. This is a coherent solution but involves several costs. It makes the advocate an instrument of deception. It would invite an unscrupulous client, under cover of the attorney-client privilege, to ask the advocate’s advice in devising the most plausible perjury.
The other resolution of the dilemma is that the lawyer must reveal the client’s perjury. A criminal accused has a right to the assistance of an advocate, a right to testify on his own behalf, and a right of confidential communication with counsel. However, an accused should not have a right to assistance of counsel in committing perjury. Furthermore, an advocate has an obligation, not only in professional ethics but under the law as well, to avoid implication in the commis*861sion of perjury or other falsification of evidence. It follows that the advocate must disclose a client’s perjury if efforts to prevent commission of perjury have failed.
In my view, the grounds stated for the last resolution are compelling and call for retention of the current provisions of the Code as annotated. If the need for preventing attorney complicity in deception requires disclosure of even privileged information in a civil trial, I see no reason why the same principle should not govern the conduct of lawyers in criminal proceedings. As the majority opinion seems to hold otherwise, I respectfully dissent.
Also unpersuasive is the holding that counsel’s revelation to the court was so prejudicial that the neutrality of the trial judge was fatally compromised and hence he should have recused himself and certified the case to another judge for trial. As there were no contested issues of fact in this case — appellant eventually accepting his counsel’s advice against testifying — the authorities cited by the majority have little or no bearing here. The record of the trial itself, as distinguished from the preliminary colloquy at the suppression hearing, contains not one piece of evidence which would have justified acquitting appellant on either the charge of assaulting a police officer or carrying an unlicensed gun. It is therefore difficult to conceive of any way in which appellant was deprived of due process, unless the majority feels that appellant was entitled to a trial before a judge ignorant of his intention to commit perjury and therefore perhaps ready to swallow whole whatever testimony appellant chose to give in that proceeding — if indeed it may be assumed that appellant would have taken the stand in a trial before another judge.
The record discloses that the trial judge was far from prejudiced against appellant despite counsel’s disclosure of his intention. At the time he was tried, appellant was in prison for conviction of a prior unrelated crime, and the two offenses for which he was convicted in this case provide for maximum terms of 10 years. Nevertheless, after imposing new prison sentences, the trial court then suspended the sentences and placed appellant on probation. Even the most unprejudiced judge could scarcely have accorded him more lenient treatment.
APPENDIX
Before HARRIS and MACK, Associate Judges, and REILLY, Chief Judge, Retired.
Opinion for the court by REILLY, Chief Judge, Retired.
Dissenting opinion by Associate Judge MACK.
REILLY, Chief Judge, Retired:
This is an appeal from a two-count conviction in a nonjury trial for (1) assault on a police officer (D.C.Code 1973, 22-505(a)), and (2) carrying a pistol without a license (D.C.Code 1973, § 22-3204). Appellant assigns as error a denial of a pretrial motion to suppress the evidence (viz., the pistol) and also urges reversal on the ground of ineffective assistance of counsel.
Appellant’s first contention, based upon an assertedly unreasonable search and seizure by the police officer who found the pistol on his person, requires only brief discussion. The confrontation which resulted in appellant’s arrest occurred late one night on a city street in a block where several cars were parked. The police officer, who had previously made several arrests of persons for stealing items from automobiles in this precise location, turned off the headlights of his unmarked car as he approached the block by means of an alley.1 He stopped the front of the car at the building line, keeping the rest of it in the alley, “and I sat there for a moment, just observed as far as I could to my left and my right.” He *862then drove forward so that the front of his car was on the sidewalk. Suddenly he turned on the headlights. He testified: “The moment after I put on the headlights, I observed the defendant stand up from behind a parked car on the west side of the street.” Appellant immediately walked away, but the officer drove abreast of him, stepped out, and asked him what he was doing. When informed by appellant that he was “just hanging around,” the officer requested some identification. This was not forthcoming, and appellant gave the officer a residence address which the officer believed to be false. Appellant then started to back away, behaving suspiciously, and the officer asked him whether he was armed. Appellant replied in the negative, but as he continued to retreat, the officer told him he would pat him down. As he was attempting to do so, appellant brushed the officer’s arm aside, and in the resulting scuffle, the officer felt what he “most reasonably was sure was a weapon.”2 A struggle ensued in which appellant struck the first officer several times. A second officer, arriving on the scene, helped the first one to subdue appellant and extract a pistol from his waistband.
As we have pointed out in Thompson v. United States, D.C.App., 368 A.2d 1148, 1150 (1977), and in numerous other cases, the right of a policeman to stop and question a person even though no probable cause for arrest exists has been sustained in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 145, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 1922, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972), if the stop “is based on suspicion and supported by ‘specific and ar-ticulable facts.’ ”
We are satisfied that in this case the court’s order denying suppression was correct. Here, appellant was discovered hidden behind a parked car late at night on a block known by the officer to have been the scene of numerous prior thefts from cars. Hence a momentary detention for questioning was an obviously reasonable police response. See, e. g., Stephenson v. United States, D.C.App., 296 A.2d 606, 609 (1972), cert. denied, 411 U.S. 907, 93 S.Ct. 1535, 36 L.Ed.2d 197 (1973).
Once the questioning had begun, the obvious failure of appellant to provide a plausible explanation for having concealed himself behind a parked car, his uncooperative answers, and his evasive tactics, were scarcely calculated to allay the officer’s original suspicions. Under these circumstances, it would have been foolhardy for the officer to have pursued his interrogation further without frisking a suspect whose behavior suggested a reasonable likelihood of his being “armed and dangerous.” See Terry v. Ohio, supra, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S.Ct. at 1884.
*863Contrary to our dissenting colleague’s description of the incident, the officer’s articulated grounds for suspicion rested in no way whatsoever upon the “familiar talis-manic litany” that he had encountered the appellant in a “high crime area.” The officer had found him concealed between parked cars on 'a block where so many thefts and pilferage of objects in such parked cars had previously occurred that in approaching this location, the officer had deliberately turned off his headlights in the expectation that he might well uncover a sneak thief at work. In Terry v. Ohio, supra, the only grounds for the disputed stop and search were that the officer had seen two men loitering in front of a retail shop and suspected, because they continued to hang around there, that they might be “casing the joint” with a view to breaking in. Had the officer in that leading case been informed that the retail shop in question had been repeatedly burgled, his justification for questioning and frisking the suspects would have been much stronger. This was the very situation which confronted the officer in the case before us.
Appellant’s asserted deprivation of effective assistance of counsel presents a somewhat more novel question. In Thornton v. United States, D.C.App., 357 A.2d 429, cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1024, 97 S.Ct. 644, 50 L.Ed.2d 626 (1976), we dealt with the dilemma of a defense counsel whose client, literally on the eve of trial, so changed his version of the incident for which he was to be tried that counsel could only conclude that testimony as to the new version would be not only perjurious, but counterproductive. Here, a somewhat comparable change in stories occurred, but within the context of the beginning of a pretrial suppression hearing.
Moreover, unlike what occurred in Thornton, appellant never did testify, either in the suppression hearing or at the trial. As we shall explain, the differences are significant.
A proper understanding of the development of the problem can best be had by quoting rather significantly from the record, rather than merely by characterizing it. As soon as the suppression hearing was called to order by the court, the following colloquy occurred:
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: As a preliminary matter, Mr. Butler has advised me he would like to address the Court about counsel, since we haven’t started the motion yet.
THE DEFENDANT: Your Honor, I don’t wish [defense counsel] to represent me. I haven’t secured counsel yet. If the Court would appoint me another counsel to represent me till I get my own counsel, it would be all right. I prefer that.
THE COURT: Well, [defense counsel] was previously appointed to represent you in this matter, was he not?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Hon- or. It seems as though I had trouble communicating with [defense counsel]. I wrote the Bar Association, the Public Defender Service and the Judge to try to communicate with [defense counsel], I was locked up in February and I saw [defense counsel] once, in April. I didn’t see [defense counsel] no more until September 9, 1975, and I really haven’t had time to — rather, he hasn’t had time to talk to me about my case. I understand that he’s a very busy man, and I’d appreciate someone who has a little more time than he has.
By that statement, appellant clearly raised a pretrial claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Faced with such a situation in another case, we recently stated:
When a defendant makes a pretrial challenge to the effectiveness of counsel— whether court-appointed or retained— and requests the appointment of new counsel on the ground that counsel, due to lack of investigation, preparation, or other substantial reason, is not rendering reasonably effective assistance, the trial court has a constitutional duty to conduct an inquiry sufficient to determine the truth and scope of the defendant’s allegations. [Monroe v. United States, D.C.App., 389 A.2d 811, 820 (1978) (citations omitted).]
*864See also Thornton v. United States, supra at 434-35; Brown v. United States, 105 U.S.App.D.C. 77, 83, 264 F.2d 363, 369 (en banc) (Burger, J., concurring), cert. denied, 360 U.S. 911, 79 S.Ct. 1299, 3 L.Ed.2d 1262 (1959).
While the suppression hearing in this case was conducted eight months prior to our decision in Thornton v. United States, supra, and nearly three years prior to our opinion in Monroe v. United States, supra, the trial court proceeded to conduct precisely such an inquiry. Defense counsel explained his position in detail:
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: If it please the Court, I was appointed to represent Mr. Butler, I believe the 1st of February, or thereabouts. This incident occurred January 31st, so I suppose it was February 1st. I met with Mr. Butler in the cellbloek and I spoke to him for at least an hour about the facts of the case. I met with him again prior to the preliminary hearing date of February 12th, 1975, and I hid at least a thirty-minute conference, and\ spoke with him again that day and we hid a preliminary hearing in which I had wi examination of the police officer. The Indictment I believe, came in April. I filed a motion to suppress the evidence. That vías going to be heard on the preliminary trial date in May, I believe. Your Honor, 1 don’t object to being removed as counsel in the case, and I’d just like to state on the record that Mr. Boiler has called the Public Defender Office, Ve has complained to the Grievance Committee and the real text of his complaint is simply he doesn’t understand, in my opirnTlj why he’s been incarcerated so long. Hb\as a two-year backup time on parole pre^tly. It was my judgment not to try to gvt him to make $1,500 bond because I have ^lked to his parole officer and he is not going to be released until this matter is litigated. The evidence is such, Your Honor, that he s in violation of [his] parole even if he wins the case, because the Parole Board can determine that the defendant had a pistol on him, which is a violation of parole conditions.
I have moved for trial all along. Judge Smith’s calendar was such that he never could get a trial. We had a continuance two or three times. The last time was September 4th, and I urged that the case be heard as soon as possible because the defendant is locked up, but it was my judgment that the defendant is benefit-ting by being locked up the same time on the parole violation and on the $1,500 bond, because he’s going to get credit eventually for the time that he’s served at the jail for both violations, for the parole violation and for the pistol charge.
The defendant is concerned that I never came down to the jail to see him for two, three, four months, and I concede I did not. I filed a motion [to suppress]. This is an open and shut case, Your Hon- or, where I talked for approximately two hours with the defendant, filed an appropriate motion, and there are one or two witnesses that are police officers, for the government, and this defendant’s word against theirs as to an incident on the street that took about ten minutes to occur. It is not a case where you put character in evidence, because the defendant is on parole for a crime of moral turpitude, and he doesn’t have an alibi because he was arrested on the scene and, to be frank, Your Honor, because I expect he wants to testify in this case, he is concerned that I do not want to put him on the stand, because he’s told me before that he had the pistol, and today for the first time he tells me that’s not true.
At this juncture, we digress briefly to refer to the dissenting opinion of Judge Mack which follows. While she apparently believes appellant was denied effective assistance of counsel, she makes a rather contrary observation. She states: “I do not suggest that counsel was incorrect in his assessment of the facts or less than astute in his choice of legal strategy.” Nonetheless, she concludes that defense counsel “was not representing his client as an advocate.”
That conclusion is manifestly contradicted by the record. Defense counsel success*865fully had negotiated a plea bargain; the government was prepared to drop the charge of assault on a police officer and agree not to allocute at the sentencing hearing if appellant were to plead guilty to the charge of carrying a pistol without a license. As the trial court’s inquiry into the matter developed, appellant first agreed to such a plea; then expressed reservations and the court terminated the discussion. Prior thereto, defense counsel further reflected his problems by making the following three observations:
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: ....
I have tried from the beginning [to] convince Mr. Butler that if we’re successful in suppressing the pistol, then we may have a good chance with the jury on assault on a police officer; but if we’re unsuccessful on suppression of the pistol, I don’t see how in the world a jury or a judge could avoid convicting him of the pistol charge. That’s where the quarrel lies, Your Honor.
* * * * * *
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Your Honor, I have tried to impress — It’s my representation I have tried to impress upon him the fact that if he pleads to the pistol charge, which I think clearly can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and the government waives allocution, he has a much stronger chance for concurrent time. I tried to impress that upon him. He won’t talk to me about that, and with two years back-up time that should be a prime consideration.
* * * * * *
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Your Honor, I have just tried to explain, I don’t mind trying any case, but I’d rather take on the hardest murder case in the world and have a chance to win it than a simple pistol charge, because you either have it or you don’t, and I have tried to persuade the defendant, and I wouldn’t be revealing these things on the record but for the fact he’s accused me of ineffective assistance of counsel.
There are three basic reasons why appellant’s assertion of ineffective assistance of counsel must fail. The first is that the trial judge made the following factual finding after hearing from’the defendant and defense counsel:
THE COURT: The situation, Mr. Butler, is that you got to decide what you want to do [as to tendering a plea]. It’s really not [defense counsel’s] fault. He’s done all he can under the circumstances. I think he’s adequately represented your interests.. I know when a case has been represented properly.
Such a type of finding, which we recently stated in Monroe v. United States, supra at 820, must be made by the trial court, is binding upon us unless it is “plainly wrong or without evidence to support it.”3 See D.C.Code 1973, § 17-305(a). Assuredly no such conclusion could be reached by us on this record.
Second, in light of the obligation of the trial court in this type of a pretrial situation “to conduct an inquiry sufficient to determine the truth and scope of the defendant’s allegations,” see Monroe v. United States, supra at 820, defense counsel as an officer of the court is obliged to acquaint the court with sufficient facts to permit an informed finding as to whether his representation has satisfied the requisite standards. Here, for counsel to have been silent as to the ultimate reason for the defendant’s seeking of new counsel would have precluded the trial court from being able to properly evaluate the circumstances.4
*866Third, any contention of a denial of effective assistance of counsel is belied by an unlikely source: our colleague’s dissenting opinion. While the acknowledgment of possession of tangible evidence which is inherent in the filing of a motion to suppress is not later admissible in a trial on the merits, Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968), the other side of that coin has equal validity. That is, for purposes of a motion to suppress, the movant acknowledges that he did have the evidence in his possession at the time of the search and seizure which he contends to be unconstitutional.5 Thus, while we confess to some surprise at our dissenting colleague’s conclusion that the frisk of appellant’s outer clothing which produced the pistol was unconstitutional, that point could not even have been presented on this record if appellant had not contended that the gun had been taken from his person impermissi-bly. Thus, as a consequence of defense counsel’s tactical decision his able presentation of that issue at the trial level, and its related submission to us by newly-appointed appellate counsel, appellant ultimately has fallen but one vote short of prevailing on the suppression issue.
We conclude by commenting briefly upon one final aspect of the multiple ineffectiveness arguments presented by appellant. It is contended that constitutional ineffectiveness occurred through the trial judge’s becoming aware of appellant’s prior criminal record before the suppression hearing and, again, before trial. Such a position is wholly frivolous. Prior to the actual suppression hearing, appellant was prepared to tender a guilty plea (although, as noted, he later changed his mind). That brought into play the provisions of Super.Ct.Cr.R. 11, subsection (c) which requires the court in a guilty plea hearing to “address the defendant personally in open court and inform him of, and determine that he understands, the following: (1) the nature of the charge to which the plea is offered, the mandatory minimum penalty provided by law, if any, and the maximum possible penalty provided by law; . . . ” As appellant previously had been convicted of carrying a pistol without a license, and hence was subject to enhanced punishment as a repeat offender, see D.C.Code 1973, §§ 22-104 and 22-3204, only by having been made aware of the prior conviction could the trial court have been in a position to conduct a proper Rule 11 guilty plea proceeding.
When the case came on for trial, the parties advised the court that they had, as is customary, agreed to stipulate as to the basic facts which had been developed at the suppression hearing concerning the possession of the pistol. The court then asked defense counsel if appellant would testify. Counsel replied:
I don’t believe he will. I have spoken to him this morning about that, Your Honor, the indication was that he would not. I explained the problems with .the Court the last time regarding whether he was telling the truth about having the pistol. So, I reserve stating what I’ll do until he gets here and let him make the *867decision but I don’t think he will take the stand.6
In the meantime, prior to trial, the government had filed the written information as to appellant’s prior conviction for carrying a pistol without a license which was a prerequisite to an increased punishment for the offense with which he was charged. See D.C.Code 1973, § 23-111(a)(1). That properly was before the court, which, in the interest of efficiency, also inquired if there were other convictions which could be used for impeachment in the event the defendant testified. The government named two; defense counsel agreed they were correct. While undoubtedly it would have been preferable for the trial court not to have inquired as to other convictions, there was no objection thereto, and assuredly no action of counsel concerning this aspect of the case amounted to constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel. (See note 4, supra.)
There being no error requiring reversal, the judgments of conviction are affirmed.

Affirmed.

. As the divisional decision was never published in Atlantic 2d, the full text of the majority and minority opinions is annexed hereto as an appendix.

. D.C.Code 1973, § 15-101.

. This footnote (16) appears in the annotation to the Code of Professional Responsibility published by the District of Columbia Bar after this court had incorporated the Code into its disciplinary rules.

. See DR 4-101(0(3).

.In Lowery v. Cardwell, supra, defense counsel was apparently taken by surprise when defendant denied participation in the fatal shooting which had resulted in a murder indictment — a statement at odds with counsel’s knowledge of the facts. He immediately moved to be allowed to withdraw as counsel. As a jury had been waived, thus making the judge the trier of fact, the circuit court inferred that counsel thereby tipped off the trial judge that the defendant’s testimony did not merit belief.

. M.A.P. v. Ryan, D.C.App., 285 A.2d 310 (1971).

. The defense counsel in Wilcox, supra, who informed the trial judge that the defendant proposed to assert a false alibi on the witness stand, was unable to account for the basis of this inference, and the court held only that an attorney may not “volunteer a mere unsubstantiated opinion that his client’s protestations of innocence are perjured.” (Emphasis supplied.) We are not dealing here with any such thing as “unsubstantiated opinion” of counsel.

. Rotunda, Book Review, 89 Harv.L.Rev. 622, 625 (1975-76).

. See “Discussion Draft of ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct,” released for comment Feb. 19, 1980, 48 U.S.L.W. No. 32; pp. 1-30.

. Id. at 15-16.

. Asked why he had turned his lights off, the officer replied:
If you turn into that street going to King-man Place, the headlights show up on the fronts of the houses on the west side of the block .... Anybody that was perpetrating a crime would know in advance that someone was coming and usually stop, for obvious reasons.

. The dissent’s selective and limited portrayal of the facts warrants the following quotation from the suppression hearing testimony of the arresting officer:
I stopped my vehicle, got out and approached Mr. Butler, and my first question, I just asked him what he was doing behind the car, and at this time he stated he was just hanging around. At 11 o’clock there was nobody else on the street. Popped up from behind a car. Due to the large amount of petit larcenies and other offenses occurring in that area, I was going to fill out a spot-check card police department form, and they’re used to compile fingerprints. You can send them in and they compare fingerprints on petit larceny cards. Anything that might be used in that area.
I then asked the defendant for some identification, at which time he stated he didn’t have any, he lost his wallet. In conversation I then asked him where he lived, and he said he lived in the 1500 block of Euclid Street, Northwest, and to the best of my recollection, he said he lived in Hilltop. To the best of my recollection, that area has been tom down or the building was vacant. At this time he became noticeably nérvous, his head sort of twitched and he was staring by me as I was asking him these questions, like looking not normal, like your eyes would blink. He just looked away from me. He began to back away from me. He began to back up a little, and at this time I asked him if he had a weapon on him, and he said no, and just started moving a little backwards, and at that time 1 told him 1 was going to pat him down on the outside, and I went to reach my right arm around his back. He pushed my arm away with his left hand. Immediately, I shoved my hand further to the small of his back, where 1 grabbed onto the butt of what I most reasonably was sure was a weapon.

. We further noted in Monroe v. United States, supra:
The trial court is not required to evaluate the strategic options open to an attorney, to substitute its personal opinions for that of defense attorneys, or to otherwise engage in speculative judgments. It is required only to ascertain the concrete steps taken by counsel in preparation of the case and to evaluate their sufficiency under the circumstances. (389 A.2d at 819.)

. Our dissenting colleague hints that defense counsel’s candid discussion of his representation of an obviously difficult client “pav[ed] the way for denial of impartiality.” No such challenge to the trial judge’s role was made in the trial court, nor has such an argument been *866made in this court. We previously have noted that: “We must recognize the presumption that a trial court will disregard all irrelevant matters in making its adjudications.” In re W.N.W., D.C.App., 343 A.2d 55, 58 (1975); see also Blakney v. United States, D.C.App., 225 A.2d 654, 655 (1967). Moreover, no evidence was received in the suppression hearing that was not admissible on the trial of the two charges against appellant. See Commonwealth v. Goodman, 454 Pa. 358, 311 A.2d 652, 654 (1973).
Also, of course, our resolution of this case is predicated on its own factual situation. An attorney at all times is bound by the Code of Professional Responsibility (in this context, see particularly DR 4-101 and DR 7-102 thereof), and the amount of information which an attorney properly may provide to the court is subject to real limitations. We simply conclude that those limitations were not exceeded here.

. It is noteworthy that while the colloquy on assistance of counsel which preceded the suppression hearing focused in part upon appellant’s apparent intention to deny having had a pistol, he repeatedly made comments reflecting his possession thereof, such as:
THE DEFENDANT: For an illegal search, Your Honor, 1 should get some type of consideration, from the search being illegal itself.

. As noted, appellant voluntarily did not take the stand. Hence, the problem of how defense counsel should deal with what he considered to be potential perjury simply never materialized.