Court Opinion

ID: 9852670
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:34:37.254891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:31.901451
License: Public Domain

Ingram, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent to the opinion of the court in this case because it applies a diluted standard of due process to the attorney who summarily has been held in contempt of this court and disbarred from practicing in the court. In doing so, I emphasize that my disagreement with the other Justices is not with the rule that permits this to be done because I would also apply the rule in an appropriate case.
What troubles me about the contempt and disbarment adjudication here is that this lawyer was never ordered to show cause why this severe action should not be taken and therefore was not given an opportunity to be heard before this judgment against him was rendered by the court.
It is true that an order was issued directing the lawyer to file an enumeration of errors in this case and none has been filed. However, we do not know why he has not complied with the order. He may have a justifiable reason, and, in any event, we ought to give him an opportunity to be heard before dropping the axe on him.
"In such a case, to oust him without notice and without a hearing is to deny him due process of law, and to withhold from him rights which have been vouchsafed to free men and which they have enjoyed almost for 'time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.’
"There is scarcely a right more ancient than that great principle that usually insures the giving of a notice of a charge against one, and with it an opportunity to be heard. Its very source is well nigh lost in antiquity. It will be remembered that even the Almighty himself, although *624His wisdom is inscrutable and all His judgments just, did not pass sentence upon Adam until He had first heard the charge against him and he was given an opportunity to make his defense. 'Adam, where art thou? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the same question was put also to EYe.’ Flint River Steamboat Co. v. Foster, 5 Ga. 194, 202 (48 AD 248).” Walton v. Davis, 188 Ga. 56, 63 (2 SE2d 603) (1939).
It could be said, in answer to my position, that if this lawyer has some justifiable reason why he should not be held in contempt and disbarred from practice before this court he can always file a motion for rehearing and assert his reasons why the majority opinion is wrong. This is no answer at all to my mind because the lawyer then comes to bat with two strikes against him. Years of practice before this court and service on it convince me that it is very difficult to change the announced result of a majority of this court in a motion for rehearing. It happens, but it is the exception and not the rule. In addition to this reason, suppose the lawyer is sick or disabled or for some other good reason unknown to the court, he cannot file a motion for rehearing. In that event, he must suffer forever the publication of this opinion, carrying his name in the official reports as being in contempt and of having been disbarred from practicing here. This is too harsh for me to accept without having a hearing as I believe the essence of due process is fairness and that this lawyer has not received it in this case.