Wright, In re
| Decision Date | 17 October 1952 |
| Docket Number | No. 3695,3695 |
| Citation | 248 P.2d 1080,69 Nev. 259 |
| Parties | In re WRIGHT. |
| Court | Nevada Supreme Court |
Morse & Graves, Las Vegas, Harlan L. Heward, Reno, for accused.
Harvey D. Dickerson, Las Vegas, for complainants.
Petitioner, a duly licensed and practicing attorney of Las Vegas, Nevada, was cited for misconduct by the local administrative committee of the State Bar of Nevada for Clark County which, after hearing, made its findings and conclusions that petitioner was guilty of misconduct. After hearing and review by the Board of Governors, findings were made by that board to the following general effect:
That petitioner did on March 15, 1950 in Las Vegas, Nevada, enter into an agreement with one Wayne Carpenter to violate the laws of the State of Nevada by securing a divorce for said Capenter without the six weeks' residence prescribed by statute, N.C.L. 1931-1941 Supp. § 9460, upon perjured testimony of said Carpenter corroborated by perjured testimony of a witness which petitioner agreed to provide for the purpose; that petitioner set a fee of $1,500 for the performance of these services, accepting and banking a check for $200 as retainer; that petitioner set a fee of $100 for the perjured testimony of the corroborating witness and attempted three times to make contact with that witness by telephone.
The board concluded that petitioner was guilty of misconduct and recommended disbarment. From that recommendation and those findings and conclusions petitioner has applied to this court for review.
It appears from the record that the person known as Carpenter was in fact a private detective from California privately employed by certain attorneys of Las Vegas to represent himself to petitioner as a prospective client. He had communicated with petitioner by telephone, pursuant to which conversation he had then flown to Las Vegas, been met at the airport by petitioner and taken to a hotel room for private discussion of his case. The hotel room to which he went had been secured for him in advance by his attorney employers. A microphone had there been hidden and connected to recording devices in an adjoining room. The agreement cited as misconduct was reached during the course of a four-hour conversation between petitioner and Carpenter, the whole of which was overheard by listeners in the adjoining room and was recorded and subsequently transcribed.
The record before the local administrative committee and the Board of Governors (which is now before us) included testimony of the listeners and both the transcript and the recording itself. Upon both hearings the recording was played in full. It has likewise received the attention of all members of this court and supports beyond question the findings of the board as we have set them forth.
During the course of these proceedings petitioner has asserted three principal defenses. Before the administrative committee his contention was that he had entered into his agreement with Carpenter deliberately but with no intention ever of carrying it through; that he suspected that a trap was being laid for him and acted as he did with the sole purpose of determining and exposing those who were attempting the entrapment.
Our study of the record renders it impossible for us to accept this contention. The conduct of the petitioner throughout his recorded conversation with Carpenter was not that of a man wary of entrapment. The admissions there freely made by him do not confine themselves to the instant act of misconduct but concern as well past actions and courses of conduct which certainly never would have been admitted had the petitioner had the slightest cause to suspect Carpenter. We are inescapably led to the conclusion that during the conversation in question, he dealt with Carpenter in full confidence that the man was as he represented himself to be and with every intention of carrying out his illicit agreement.
Before the Board of Governors, petitioner contended that he was so plied with liquor by Carpenter that his mind became befogged and that in entering into his agreement he did not know what he was doing; that he never would have entered into the agreement had he not been intoxicated. This defense, too, we must reject.
In the first place, it is wholly and flagrantly inconsistent with the earlier defense, made under oath before the administrative committee. A man who claims that from the outset he had suspected and deliberatly set out to expose his entrappers cannot, in the same breath, be heard to say that he knew not what he was doing.
Furthermore the record again refutes this contention. Petitioner's constant admonitions as to the necessity for caution and future silence; his explorations of factual danger zones; his recognition of potential weak spots in the false story and advice as to explanations to be made thereof; all bespeak a practitioner experienced in such matters and a mind fully alert to the dangerous vulnerability of a perjured case and to the consequences of deliberate professional misconduct. Before the board petitioner at least three times testified that intoxication overcame him during the second half of the four-hour conversation. The record demonstrates that the agreement was fully discussed during the first two hours and was reached immediately following dinner served in the room, the consuming of which occupied approximately thirty minutes of that time.
Petitioner's principal defense before this court is that of entrapment. It is first contended that the record does not show any foundation or basis for such resort to a decoy. This contention we must reject. It is clear from the record that Carpenter's employers believed and had reasonable cause to believe not only that petitioner was a person disposed to commit the offense, but that he had already committed a similar offense on at least one occasion. That actual proof of such earlier offense does not appear in the record does not destroy the foundation of such cause for belief.
Next it is contended that the offense was committed at the instigation and subject to the persuasion and inducement of Carpenter; that the criminal design originated not with petitioner but with...
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Wyatt v. State
...a crime and merely furnished the opportunity for the commission thereof by one who had the requisite criminal intent.' In re Wright, 69 Nev. 258, 263, 248 P.2d 1080, 1082, the principal defense was one of entrapment. There we 'It is first contended that the record does not show any foundati......
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Burleigh v. State Bar of Nevada, 12989
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