Court Opinion

ID: 9714567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:40:32.329058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:27.128492
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, PAUL H., Justice
(dissenting).
Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.
William Shakespeare, Othello act 3, sc. 3.
I respectfully dissent. I join Justice Page’s dissent, but write separately because I believe the sanctions recommended by Justice Page are insufficient. Andrade not only attempted to swindle his client, but in the process he impugned the integrity of the Minneapolis Police Department in general and more specifically that of the person in charge of the department’s Drug Task Force. This latter act warrants more severe sanctions. Therefore, I would suspend Andrade from the practice of law for a period of not less than 48 months and, upon reinstatement, require that he be subject to supervised probation.
The undisputed facts in this case are that Andrade asked his client for money to be used to pay a bribe to an unnamed, high-ranking Minneapolis police official. The bribe was for the official’s assistance in getting the pending drug charges against the client dismissed. The client reported Andrade’s demand to the police; and, in a series of meetings recorded by the police, Andrade indicated to his client that Andrade had either paid $25,000 to the police official and needed another $25,000, or that he had already paid $15,000 and needed an additional $10,000 to pay the balance. The client then gave Andrade $5,000 in cash as a partial pay*611ment for the bribe. The money the client paid to Andrade was provided by law enforcement as part of a sting operation.
When soliciting money from his client on the premise of paying a bribe, Andrade violated Rule 8.4(e) of the Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct.1 Here, it is important to focus on exactly what Andrade did. For his own personal economic gain, he impugned the integrity of the Minneapolis Police Department and in particular a high-ranking person in that department. In his own words, he impugned the reputation of others because he saw “an opportunity to get paid.” His identification of the individual to be bribed as the “person who is in charge of all the police of the Drug Task Force” was sufficiently specific that very few persons could have fit this description. Undoubtedly, when the report of Andrade’s demand was first received by the police, a question was raised within the police department whether a certain member of the department had done something improper or illegal. We do not know if Andrade’s misconduct led to any type of internal police investigation or distress to any particular officer. What we do know is that Andrade, just like a thief entering a home in the middle of the night to steal personal property, stole, or at a minimum attempted to steal, from some person a very valuable possession — that person’s reputation. Such conduct is not only unprofessional, it is particularly reprehensible.
Finally, there is one other matter on which I disagree with the dissent. Justice Page concludes that no one person was individually harmed by Andrade’s misconduct. I conclude that individuals were harmed by his conduct. In addition to some unnamed, high-ranking police officer, Andrade harmed his client. He did so when his conduct confirmed his client’s cynical view of the American justice system and violated their attorney/client trust relationship.

. Rule 8.4(e) was amended effective October 1, 2005. The conduct at issue in this case took place before the effective date of the amendment. The amendment does not have any substantive effect on the issues or analysis in this case. Therefore, for simplicity, I cite to the current version of the rule.