In re Sparrow
| Citation | 90 S.W.2d 401,338 Mo. 203 |
| Decision Date | 19 December 1935 |
| Docket Number | 34722 |
| Parties | In re Disbarment Proceedings v. William G. Sparrow |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Missouri |
Remanded to the Springfield Court of Appeals.
Frank Hollingsworth and Victor C. Gladney for informants.
McCarthy Morris & Zachritz for respondent.
This is a disbarment proceeding, instituted on September 3, 1935, in the Springfield Court of Appeals. With leave of that court the members of the Bar Committee of the Twenty-fourth Judicial Circuit of the State, acting in their capacity as such, filed in said court an information against the respondent, William G. Sparrow, an attorney at law, duly licensed to practice and engaged in the practice of law in this State, and a member of the State Bar.
The information shows on its face that the acts charged against the respondent, as alleged to authorize the withdrawal of his license to continue in the practice of law, occurred in the year 1933 and thereafter, within the territorial jurisdiction of said Court of Appeals. The information recites that after the appointment by our court of the informants as members of such committee, the committee conducted first an informal investigation of alleged professional misconduct of respondent in the practice of his profession, and thereafter, and in pursuance thereof, on due notice to respondent held a formal hearing in the city of Aurora in Lawrence County touching the matters investigated. At the conclusion of the hearing the committee unanimously "found the accused guilty of professional misconduct in the particulars" set forth in the information subsequently filed. For the purpose of this opinion it is unnecessary to state the charges themselves.
On the date first above stated summons to respondent was issued by the Court of Appeals made returnable October 7, 1935, requiring him to answer said information. On the return date respondent filed a combined return, demurrer, motion to make more definite, motion to strike out, motion to dismiss or quash and answer to said charges contained in said information.
On November 4, 1935, the Court of Appeals found "that a constitutional question has been properly raised in respondent's pleading and that said court is without jurisdiction of the cause," and transferred the same to this court pursuant to Article VI, Section 12 of our State Constitution. The constitutional question is not set out in the order and is to be sought in respondent's pleading.
Before seeking it we may appropriately observe that any supposed inherent want of jurisdiction in that court to entertain disbarment proceedings within its territorial jurisdiction should at once be eliminated. In the Matter of Richards, 333 Mo. l. c. 910-914, 63 S.W.2d 672, our court upon an exhaustive review of the subject of disbarment and the law relative to it -- after considering previous decisions rendered in the appellate courts of this State and the country over, and the common law appertaining -- reached the conclusion which may be well summarized by the following quotation from a standard text there referred to (l. c.913), as follows: "From the earliest times the right to punish attorneys by suspension or disbarment, as well as for contempt, has been exercised by the courts as an inherent power. . . ."
Turning to matters set up by respondent by way of answer, we find (par. 12) an allegation to the effect that, the alleged misconduct of respondent having occurred prior to the effective date of the Supreme Court's Rules, said rules cannot in this proceeding be applied retroactively without violating our State Constitutional provisions, Article II, Section 15, which prohibits the enactment of any law ex post facto or retroactive in its operation; Article XII, Section 19, which provides that the General Assembly shall pass no law retrospective in its operation or which imposes . . . a new liability in respect to transactions already past. The answer alleges also that said rules, and the practice followed under the same in this instance by the committee, were in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It is said subsection 3 of Rule 36 confers upon the committee power, with or without notice to the suspected party, to investigate in a summary and informal manner any matter of professional misconduct, and upon the testimony taken therein, to find "the accused guilty of the misconduct charged;" that such procedure does not give the accused such notice and opportunity to be heard, and to be confronted with the witnesses against him, as constitutes due process and, therefore, deprives respondent of his reputation, professional standing and property, contrary to said amendment.
These constitutional questions seem more colorable than substantial; yet we deem it well to consider them in some detail because they relate to our Rule 36, so recently promulgated -- a little more than a year ago -- and only of late being put into actual and effectual operation by the bar committees appointed in the judicial circuits of the State.
We will first consider the question of due process, predicated upon the Fourteenth Amendment which provides, inter alia, that "No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Let it be assumed for the discussion of this point that the property of respondent is involved, and assumed also that he will be accorded an opportunity (as will be pointed out herein below) to confront the witnesses against him in the trial that is in prospect. When such a trial shall have been had it will not be possible for any court to hold that the respondent has, without due process of law, been deprived of his property when, as regards the issue affecting it, he has by the laws of the State had a fair trial in a court of justice, according to the modes of procedure applicable to such proceedings. For each state provides its own mode of judicial procedure. [Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, l. c. 534-535.]
Each state has complete control over the remedies which it offers to suitors in its courts. It may give a new and additional remedy for a right already in existence; it may abolish old remedies and substitute new. [State ex rel. v. Bair, 333 Mo 1, l. c. 16, 63 S.W.2d 64, 66.] This observation had, in the cited case, particular application to ...
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