Allen, In re
| Decision Date | 09 October 1959 |
| Citation | 344 P.2d 609,52 Cal.2d 762 |
| Parties | In re Claude ALLEN, on Disbarment. S. F. 20202. |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
Wilmont Sweeney, Oakland, Richard A. Bancroft, San Francisco, Carl B. Metoyer. Clinton W. White, Oakland, and Loren Miller, Los Angeles, for petitioner.
Garrett H. Elmore, San Francisco, for respondent.
Petitioner, an attorney at law, was charged in Alameda County with four counts of soliciting others to commit perjury (Penal Code, § 653f). In September, 1957, he changed a plea of not guilty to guilty on counts 3 and 4 and the other two counts were dismissed. Sentence was suspended and he was placed on probation for three years, conditioned in part on the payment of a $2,000 fine within one year.
A record of the conviction (see Business & Professions Code, § 6101) was filed with this court. We issued an order to show cause why a final disciplinary order should not be made and on November 26, 1957, suspended petitioner from the practice of law pending final disposition of this proceeding. The matter was then referred to The State Bar for report and recommendation as to the extent of discipline to be imposed. Bus. & Prof.Code, § 6102. The Board of Governors, by majority vote, followed the local committee's recommendation of disbarment. Three board members dissented on the ground that the discipline recommended was too severe. Petitioner likewise urges that, in the circumstances, disbarment is too harsh a penalty. We conclude that the board's majority recommendation should be accepted.
Petitioner does not dispute that the basic facts warrant disbarment but pleads that consideration be given to his background, which he sets forth as follows: He is a Negro, born in Mississippi in 1916, and presently forty-three years of age. In 1935 he graduated from high school in Mississippi, attended two semesters of college, and then quit in order to marry. He was inducted into the army in January, 1941, and commissioned a second lieutenant. On the termination of hostilities in 1945 he reverted to inactive military status and brought his wife and three children to Oakland, California, where he has since resided. He engaged in various business activities and employments and in 1949 enrolled at Lincoln University Law School in Oakland under the G.I. Bill but continued working outside class hours in order to support his family. He was admitted to The State Bar in 1954, and thereafter, until his present difficulties arose, practiced law independently in the Oakland area. His clientele consisted 'almost entirely of and was confined to the Negro population of Alameda County.'
In May, 1957, petitioner was representing one Bradley who was plaintiff in an action for damages resulting from an automobile accident that had occurred two years earlier. In the course of preparing the action for trial petitioner retained an investigator named Chapelle and asked him to attempt to locate witnesses to the accident. According to the findings of the local committee and the board, Chapelle and petitioner discussed possible ways to obtain a settlement of the action, including the possibility of obtaining from someone a statement favorable to plaintiff as a basis for negotiating a settlement, and also the possibility of using perjured testimony. Petitioner admits that his conduct during such discussions may have caused Chapelle to feel that perjured testimony would be acceptable. Chapelle offered one Wardell $10 to secure two persons who would testify as witnesses. Wardell got in touch with the district attorney's office, which arranged for two of its investigators to pose as purported witnesses, and meet Chapelle. Chapelle coached the two as to the testimony they were to give, and on May 17, 1957, took them to petitioner's office where petitioner reviewed such testimony and Chapelle gave each of them $12.50 and promised each a further $12.50 after they had testified. Petitioner did not again see the two witnesses until the day of the trial, June 3, 1957.
On the morning of the trial petitioner in his opening statement declared that he had two witnesses to the accident who would testify. During the noon recess the purported witnesses went to petitioner's office and told him that they had not seen the accident and did not wish to testify. Petitioner insisted that they do so and offered them additional compensation. After trial resumed in the afternoon the two again told petitioner, at the counsel table, that they were not going to testify; petitioner told them to go outside, that he would see them later. During the afternoon recess petitioner went out in the hall to talk with them and was then arrested. Thereafter both he and Chapelle were indicted by the grand jury.
Testimony of the two purported witnesses, given before the grand jury and received in evidence in this disciplinary proceeding, indicates that petitioner knew at the time of the May 17 meeting in his office that such witnesses were false. The only testimony given at the hearing before the local committee was that of petitioner and of character witnesses. Petitioner's counsel stated his testimony would be offered to explain background facts indicating he was not a completely unworthy person, rather than that he had not committed a wrongful act; that it was petitioner's position that after the two purported witnesses 'had come into the office, after he had his first interview with them, he was then aware of the fact that they probably were not true witnesses to the accident that did occur; that he did, however, have a client who was (petitioner believed) * * * completely an honest person, but he had no independent witnesses at the time, that he did not send Chapelle, who was his investigator, out to secure perjured testimony, but after it came in and a few days before the trial, he more or less overlooked the fact, or tried to ignore the fact that these people were not true witnesses to the accident.'
Petitioner, who testified to the above effect, stated further that when during the noon recess of the trial the witnesses stated they had not seen the accident and did not want to testify, he thought perhaps they had talked with an investigator 'on the other side' and had been offered more money, and he...
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