Calvo, Matter of
Decision Date | 24 July 1996 |
Docket Number | No. 95-4230,95-4230 |
Parties | In the Matter of William A. CALVO, III, Petitioner. Non-Argument Calendar. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
William A. Calvo, III, Belleview, FL, pro se.
Linda Collins Hertz, Michael R. Tein, Asst. U.S. Attys., Miami, FL, for appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Before TJOFLAT, Chief Judge, and HATCHETT and CARNES, Circuit Judges.
William A. Calvo, III, appeals the district court's order that disbarred him from practicing law in the Southern District of Florida. In disbarring Calvo, the district court relied upon the Florida Supreme Court's disbarment of him. That reliance was improper, Calvo contends, because the proceedings that resulted in his state court disbarment were constitutionally deficient. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the district court's order.
In 1988, a federal district court granted the Securities and Exchange Commission's ("SEC") motion for an injunction prohibiting Calvo from violating the federal securities laws. SEC v. Elec. Warehouse, Inc., 689 F.Supp. 53 (D.Conn.1988), aff'd, 891 F.2d 457 (2d Cir.1989), cert. denied, 496 U.S. 942, 110 S.Ct. 3228, 110 L.Ed.2d 674 (1990). The court found that Calvo had directly violated the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Securities Act") and its related rules, and also that Calvo had aided and abetted others in violating the Securities Act and its rules. As a result, the SEC suspended Calvo from appearing or practicing before it for two years. In re Calvo, SEC Admin.Proc. No. 3-7038.
Thereafter, the Florida Bar instituted disciplinary proceedings against Calvo, based upon his having committed securities fraud. An evidentiary hearing was held, after which the Florida Bar referee recommended that Calvo be disbarred. Calvo challenged that recommendation before the Florida Supreme Court on several grounds, all of which that court rejected; it ordered Calvo disbarred. The Florida Bar v. Calvo, 630 So.2d 548 (Fla.1993), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 58, 130 L.Ed.2d 16 (1994). Calvo filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court, which was denied.
In 1994, the federal district court entered an order directing Calvo to show cause within thirty days "why the imposition of the identical discipline by this court would be unwarranted and the reasons therefor." In his response to that order, Calvo alleged numerous constitutional defects in the Florida state court proceedings, and requested an evidentiary hearing before the district court. Calvo attached several documents to his response, including: (1) a forty-six page "certified narrative" written by Calvo regarding the Florida proceedings, (2) copies of the briefs that both parties filed before the Florida Supreme Court, (3) a copy of the Florida Supreme Court's decision, (4) a copy of the SEC's decision, and (5) Calvo's motion for rehearing before the Florida Supreme Court. The district court declined to conduct a hearing, and, in 1995, pursuant to its local rules of disciplinary enforcement, ordered that Calvo be disbarred from practice before it. See S.D.Fla. Rules Governing Attorney Discipline, Rule V.E. Calvo appeals that order.
We must first decide whether we have jurisdiction over Calvo's appeal. The jurisdictional question focuses on whether there is a case or controversy under Article III of the United States Constitution. In supplemental briefs filed in this Court, both Calvo and the government contend that we have jurisdiction. We agree. Although neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has ever expressly held that we have jurisdiction over an appeal from a district court's disbarment order, there is an abundance of authority from the Supreme Court and this Court that strongly suggests that we do.
First, the Supreme Court explicitly has held that state court bar admissions and bar disciplinary decisions present "cases or controversies" under Article III. In In re Summers, 325 U.S. 561, 568, 65 S.Ct. 1307, 1312, 89 L.Ed. 1795 (1945), the Supreme Court held that it had jurisdiction to review a state supreme court's denial of admission to that state bar because that denial involved a case or controversy. The Court stated:
Where relief is thus sought in a state court against the action of a committee, appointed to advise the court, and the court takes cognizance of the complaint without requiring the appearance of the committee or its members, we think the consideration of the petition by the Supreme Court, the body which has authority itself by its own act to give the relief sought, makes the proceeding adversary in the sense of a true case or controversy.
Id. at 567-68, 65 S.Ct. at 1311-12. The Court emphasized that Id. at 567, 65 S.Ct. at 1311.
Similarly, in District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983), the Court held that a District of Columbia Court of Appeals order rejecting an application for admission to the District of Columbia bar was judicial in nature, thus making applicable the doctrine that bars federal district court review of state court decisions. The Court stated that "the proceedings before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals involved a 'judicial inquiry' in which the court was called upon to investigate, declare, and enforce 'liabilities as they [stood] on present or past facts and under laws supposed already to exist.' " Id. at 479, 103 S.Ct. at 1313 (alteration in original) (quoting Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line Co., 211 U.S. 210, 226, 29 S.Ct. 67, 69, 53 L.Ed. 150 (1908)); cf. In re Palmisano, 70 F.3d 483 (7th Cir.1995) ( ).
Summers and Feldman are instructive in the present case, and inform us that bar admissions, bar disciplinary actions, and disbarments are essentially judicial in nature and thus present a case or controversy under Article III. See Summers, 325 U.S. at 566-67, 65 S.Ct. at 1311 (1945) ().
It matters not that this case involves the disbarment of an attorney instead of the denial of admission to a bar, or that this case involves a federal bar rather than a state bar. The district court's actions were as judicial in nature as those of the state supreme court in Summers. Prior to ordering Calvo disbarred, the district court judges met and considered Calvo's response to the order to show cause. The district court had before it Calvo's forty-six page description of the state court proceedings, various briefs and memoranda he had filed in the state court proceedings, a copy of the SEC's decision, a copy of the Florida Supreme Court's decision, and a copy of Calvo's petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court.
That the district court did not conduct a hearing regarding Calvo's disbarment does not mean it lacked jurisdiction. See, e.g., Summers, 325 U.S. at 566-69, 65 S.Ct. at 1311-12 ( ). Our jurisdictional inquiry concerns "the nature and effect" of the proceeding, rather than its form. See id. at 567, 65 S.Ct. at 1311. Because the "nature and effect" of the district court proceeding was to curtail Calvo's ability to practice law in the district court, and because we are capable of acting on Calvo's appeal, the district court's decision to disbar him is justiciable under Article III. See, e.g., Ex Parte Burr, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 529, 530, 6 L.Ed. 152 (1824) ().
Second, in addition to the Supreme Court cases that explicitly hold that the Court has jurisdiction over appeals from state bar admission and disciplinary decisions, the Supreme Court and this Court have reviewed federal court bar admission and disciplinary decisions on a number of occasions, which suggests that jurisdiction over these types of appeals is proper despite the lack of explicit holdings to that effect. In In re Snyder, 472 U.S. 634, 105 S.Ct. 2874, 86 L.Ed.2d 504 (1985), the Supreme Court reviewed an order of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals suspending an attorney for six months from practice in all courts of the Eighth Circuit. The Court reversed the disbarment order on the merits, stating that the facts, even as the district court understood them, did "not support a finding of contemptuous or contumacious conduct, or a finding that [the] lawyer is 'not presently fit to practice law in the federal courts.' " Id. at 647, 105 S.Ct. at 2882. The Court did not specifically address the jurisdictional issue, and thus the case does not provide an explicit holding on that issue. Even so, the fact that the Supreme Court reviewed the order on the merits, without questioning its jurisdiction, strongly suggests that it believed its jurisdiction to be proper. See also In re Ruffalo, 390 U.S. 544, 88 S.Ct. 1222, 20 L.Ed.2d 117 (1968) ( ); Theard v. United States, 354 U.S. 278, 77 S.Ct. 1274, 1 L.Ed.2d 1342 (1957) ( ).
Similarly, this Court has reviewed numerous district court orders regarding bar disciplinary matters. In Greer's Refuse Serv., Inc. v. Browning-Ferris Indus., 843 F.2d 443 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 967, 109 S.Ct. 493, 102...
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