Court Opinion

ID: 9660854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:22:30.742463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:22.766112
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
Hereby, I reimpose my entire concurring opinion found In Matter of Discipline of Jeffries, 488 N.W.2d 674, 678 (S.D.1992). Thereby, I again vote for disbarment.
During argument before this Court upon rehearing (which I did not vote for), counsel for Jeffries admitted his client was “impaired” when he prosecuted. This type of prosecution is a hurt — an affront — a wrong upon the public.
During argument, Jeffries, in addressing the Court, inter alia, expressed “I was singled out” [for prosecution]. This statement was in reference to other participants, within the framework of the legal profession, using drugs. Such a statement does not equate with remorse or sorrow. Rather, he exhibits a victim’s mentality.
Reference is made to: Matter of Discipline of Hopp, 376 N.W.2d 816 (S.D.1985); Matter of Discipline of Willis, 371 N.W.2d 794 (S.D.1985); Matter of Discipline of Brende, 366 N.W.2d 500 (S.D.1985); Mat *228ter of Discipline of Kessler, 366 N.W.2d 499 (S.D.1985); Matter of Discipline of Strange, 366 N.W.2d 495 (S.D.1985). These attorneys were not prosecutors for the State of South Dakota. They were practicing attorneys. Therein lie the gravamen of Jeffries’ wrong as contrasted to the above cited cases.
Jeffries would use drugs at night and prosecute by day for the acts he was committing. This was a double standard at its zenith. Such type of conduct poisons the criminal justice system. It destroys the public’s confidence in our courts.
This attorney’s professional calling was to eliminate the drug culture; instead, he aided it; he was a part of it. Rather than to “ride with the law,” as an old cowboy would say, he chose to “ride against it.”
In Matter of Discipline of Hendrickson, 456 N.W.2d 140, 141 (S.D.1990) we expressed:
Disbarment is warranted when it is clear that the protection of society requires such action or where the maintenance of respect for courts and judges or the respectability of the legal profession itself demands such action.
As the United States Supreme Court has held, the prosecutor is “a servant of the law,” not an advocate of an ordinary party. United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976). As such, prosecutors are held to a higher standard lest the “special significance to the prosecutor’s obligation to serve the cause of justice” be lost. Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 63, n. 2, 109 S.Ct. 333, 340, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988) (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (quoting Agurs, 427 U.S. at 111, 96 S.Ct. at 2401).
Seemingly, if there were ever a case to apply such a statement, it exists here. In my opinion, lest the public view us with disdain, we should disbar Jeffries: For, indeed, the maintenance of respect for the courts and judges demands it; and, so, also, the respectability of the legal profession is at stake when prosecutors corrupt their very essence.