Court Opinion

ID: 9641728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:39:10.342547+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:39.438504
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Associate Justice
(concurring) .
It is without dispute in this case that the appellant repeatedly charged an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia with corruptly obstructing justice by the authentication of a false bill of exceptions and by “handpicking” a jury in the case of Moder v. United States, 62 App.D.C. 65, 64 F.(2d) 703, and that he similarly charged a former United States District Attorney for the District of Columbia with obstructing justice by the preparation and submission to the trial justice for authentication of a false bill of excep*896tions. It is without dispute also that the appellant induced a third person to make similar charges against the associate justice in question and also a charge that the justice could not be trusted to decide a case involving a poor person on the one hand and a banker or government official of high standing upon the other.
Having become an associate- justice of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on October 7, 1935, I was not a member of the court during the germane proceedings antecedent to this appeal. I have, however, upon this appeal, examined the briefs of counsel and the record, and I am satisfied that the finding of the trial court sitting in general term is supported by evidence and is proper as a matter of law, and I am satisfied that the disbarment hearing was conducted according to law and that the appellant’s assignments of error are without merit. With respect to the appellant’s charge against the trial justice and the District Attorney with reference to the bill of exceptions in the Moder Case, there seems no basis for the same, except a literal incorrectness or incompleteness in the bill. This did not warrant the appellant’s conclusion that there was corruption on the part of the associate justice and the District Attorney. The bill apparently was prepared, and in good faith, to embody such of the proceedings and exceptions as were necessary in respect of the errors assigned in the case in question.1 The only basis for the appellant’s conclusion in reference to the alleged corruption of the trial justice in the selection of a jury was that the justice on his own motion excused all jurors who had made financial contributions either for or against modifications or repeal of the national prohibition laws. The case in question, the Moder Case, was a liquor case, and the action of the trial justice was properly within his discretion.
It is clear that the charges made by the appellant against the trial justice and the District Attorney were false, and clear that the appellant either knew them to be false or made them in gross recklessness of the truth. There is ample authority under the circumstances for the action of the trial court in disbarring the appellant.
Respect for courts, judges, and prosecuting officials is necessary for the effectiveness of their functioning. That respect must rest first, of course, upon a foundation of actual integrity; but it rests necessarily also in part upon the support of the courts and their officials by members of the bar. Where a court and its judge and prosecuting official possess integrity, it is the duty of a member of the bar to defend that integrity, not to assail it. Deliberate, persistent and unfounded attack upon the integrity of the court and its officials is conduct which in my view unfits the person guilty thereof for continued membership in the bar.

The rules of this court contemplate that a bill of exceptions shall contain only such matter as is germane to the errors assigned. See Rule VII, paragraph 9, and Rule VIII, paragraph 5.