Court Opinion

ID: 9636263
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:21:59.133552+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:43.567531
License: Public Domain

WALKER, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur with Justice Stover’s opinion granting habeas corpus relief. I also concur with Justice Burgess’s concurring opinion. I write this additional concurrence in hopes of highlighting certain matters of concern.
The record clearly reveals Mr. Dean Johnson’s contemptuous conduct toward , the trial court’s production order. “Contempt of Court” is defined as:
Any act which is calculated to embarrass, hinder, or obstruct court in administration of justice, or which is calculated to lessen its authority or its dignity. Committed by a person who does any act in willful contravention of its authority or dignity, or tending to impede or frustrate the administration of justice, or by one who, being under the court’s authority as a party to a proceeding therein, willfully disobeys its lawful orders or fails to comply with an undertaking which he has given.
BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 319 (6th ed.1990).
Mr. Johnson, Relator, escapes the legal ramifications of such conduct by what Justice Burgess refers to as a “technicality.”
Although this “technicality” is a free pass to Mr. Johnson’s incarceration, it does not excuse his contempt of and for the legal process.
The Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct provides in part:
PREAMBLE: A LAWYER’S RESPONSIBILITIES
1. A lawyer is a representative of clients, an officer of the legal system and a public citizen having special responsibility for the quality of justice. Lawyers, as guardians of the law, play a *436vital role in the preservation of society. The fulfillment of this role requires an understanding by lawyers of their relationship with and function in our legal system. A consequent obligation of lawyers is to maintain the highest standards of ethical conduct.
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4. A lawyer’s conduct should conform to the requirements of the law, both in professional service to clients and in the, lawyer’s business and personal affairs. A lawyer should use the law’s procedures only for legitimate purposes and not to harass or intimidate others. A lawyer should demonstrate respect for the legal system and for those who serve it, including judges, other lawyers and public officials. While it is a lawyer’s duty, when necessary, to challenge the rectitude of official action, it is also a lawyer’s duty to uphold legal process.
See TEX. DISCIPLINARY R. PROF’L CONDUCT Preamble, reprinted in TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN., tit. 2, subtit. G app. A (Vernon 1998) (TEX. STATE BAR R. art. X § 9).
The rule of law must stand even though the guilty may escape due punishment. Therefore, I concur, that Mr. Johnson be released from the trial court’s order of contempt.