Court Opinion

ID: 9711080
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:24:06.611007+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:02.099636
License: Public Domain

MANDERINO, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent because neither subsection II nor subsection III of 17 P.S. § 2041 holds appellant’s conduct to be contemptuous. Appellant refused to represent his client because he was unprepared and believed that it would work an injustice to attempt to do so. Appellant was held in contempt because he disobeyed the trial judge’s order to defend his client despite this unpreparedness. If the trial judge ordered appellant to advise his client to plead guilty, and appellant refused, would we hold appellant in contempt because subsection II includes the word “disobedience”?; or because *7subsection III talks of obstructing justice? Of course we would not.
I fail to see the importance of appellant’s failure to offer reasons why he was unprepared. The reason might have been a personal one, one which the appellant did not wish to make public. What if an attorney offers a reason why he or she is not prepared and the trial court is not satisfied with the reason? Can the trial court proceed to order an unprepared lawyer to represent someone and hold that lawyer in contempt if the lawyer, in good conscience, refuses to do so? I would hope not.
Whatever the true reason for appellant’s unpreparedness, he disobeyed a court directive only because he thought it would unjustly jeopardize his client’s interests. I cannot join in any court decision which would penalize an attorney for such a course of action.
Moreover, the majority cites no authority for the proposition that a trial judge has the discretion to deny a motion to withdraw. There is no evidence of previous delay in this case. It may be, although the record is silent on the matter, that thousands of prosecution witnesses were standing by waiting to testify in this earth-shaking case involving not merely murder or rape — but prostitution. Trial courts, of course, must grind out speedy justice in these momentous cases.