Attorney Grievance Com'n of Maryland v. Sparrow

• Decision Date: 01 September 1987
• Docket Number: No. 30,30
• Citation: 314 Md. 421,550 A.2d 1150
• Parties: ATTORNEY GRIEVANCE COMMISSION OF MARYLAND v. Victor H. SPARROW, III. Misc. Docket (Subtitle BV),
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 421

314 Md. 421

550 A.2d 1150

ATTORNEY GRIEVANCE COMMISSION OF MARYLAND v. Victor H. SPARROW, III.

Misc. Docket (Subtitle BV) No. 30, Sept. Term, 1987.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 20, 1988.

Melvin Hirshman, Bar Counsel and Kendall R. Calhoun, Asst. Bar Counsel, for Atty. Grievance Com'n of Maryland, for petitioner.

Sheila D. Brooks, Baltimore, for respondent.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, COLE, RODOWSKY, McAULIFFE, ADKINS and BLACKWELL, JJ.

ADKINS, Judge.

Before us in this case is the question of what sanction should be imposed on a member of the Maryland Bar who in 1982, was convicted of serious crimes by a federal court in California, in 1985 suspended from the practice of law in California, and in 1987 reinstated in California.

In May 1984, a hearing panel of the Hearing Department of the State Bar Court of the State Bar of California ¹ found that respondent, Victor H. Sparrow, III, a member of the California Bar, had

during the period from 1980 through 1982, ... conspired with others to direct and manage a sham marriage ring in order that aliens could illegally obtain permanent status in the United States. The sham marriages were arranged by the conspirators and [Sparrow] thereafter knowingly filed documents which he knew to be false, with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) regarding said marriages.

In addition, the panel found that Sparrow had suborned perjury (by advising the aliens to give false answers at INS proceedings) and had stolen government property (an INS manual). Sparrow was convicted of these offenses on 24 November 1982 by a jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. ² The State Bar Court panel recommended disbarment.

On 31 August 1984, the Review Department of the State Bar Court ³ adopted the panel's factual findings as to Sparrow's misconduct and recommended that he be suspended from the practice of law in California for five years, that the execution of the order for suspension be stayed, and that Sparrow be placed on probation for five years, subject to a number of conditions. One of the conditions was that Sparrow be suspended from the practice of law during the first two years of his probation. At the conclusion of the probationary period, and upon performance of the terms of probation, Sparrow's suspension was to be automatically terminated.

This became the recommendation of the State Bar Court of California. This was the sanction imposed by the Supreme Court of California on 21 March 1985, effective 19 April 1985. ⁴ Sparrow was reinstated in California on 19 April 1987.

When discipline was imposed in California, Sparrow was a member of the Maryland Bar as well as that of California. ⁵ For reasons not apparent from the record, however, official word of the California disciplinary action did not reach Maryland in timely fashion; indeed, it never reached Maryland through official channels. Sparrow at some point applied for membership in the Maryland State Bar Association, and in the course of applying, candidly revealed his California difficulties. The Maryland State Bar Association apparently informed the Attorney Grievance Commission. That agency's Review Board, on or about 9 December 1987 (almost eight months after Sparrow had been reinstated in California), authorized the initiation of the proceedings now before us.

Before Judge Morris Turk, of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, to whom we referred the case pursuant to Rule BV9 b, the parties stipulated to the proceedings before the United States District Court for the Southern District of California and to the California disciplinary proceedings. Judge Turk found that Sparrow had violated Disciplinary Rule 1-102(A)(1), (3), (4), (5), (6). ⁶ There are no exceptions to any of Judge Turk's findings or conclusions. Under Rule BV10e1 "a final judgment by a judicial tribunal in another proceeding convicting an attorney of a crime shall be conclusive proof of the guilt of the attorney of that crime" and "[a] final adjudication in a disciplinary proceeding by a judicial tribunal ... that an attorney has been guilty of misconduct is conclusive proof of the misconduct in the hearing of charges pursuant to this Rule."

Sparrow, then, does not contest the fact that, at the beginning of this decade, he was guilty of serious criminal misconduct. He contends, nevertheless, that we should impose a sanction no greater than that administered by California. Bar Counsel, on the other hand, recommends the ultimate sanction of disbarment.

The California disciplinary proceedings conclusively establish the fact of Sparrow's misconduct. This does not mean, however, that we must apply the same sanction that California applied. True, we have often imposed a sanction of facially equal severity as that imposed by a sister state. See, e.g., Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Bettis, 305 Md. 452, 505 A.2d 492 (1986) (attorneys disbarred in District of Columbia and later in Maryland); Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Moore, 301 Md. 169, 482 A.2d 497 (1984) (per curiam) (same); Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Hines, 304 Md. 625, 500 A.2d 646 (1985) (per curiam) (attorneys suspended in District of Columbia later suspended for like period in Maryland); Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Rosen, 301 Md. 37, 481 A.2d 799 (1984) (per curiam) (same); Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. James, 300 Md. 297, 477 A.2d 1185 (1984) (same). But the rule is that in cases of reciprocal discipline

we look not only to the sanction imposed by the other jurisdiction but to our own cases as well. The sanction will depend on the unique facts and circumstances of each case, but with a view toward consistent dispositions for similar misconduct.

Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Parsons, 310 Md. 132, 142, 527 A.2d 325, 330 (1987). Thus, in Parsons, we looked to our own cases and imposed a 90-day suspension, instead of the six-month suspension that the District of Columbia had found appropriate. Id. at 143-143, 527 A.2d at 330.

When we look to our own cases, however, we find that they seem to demand a sanction more severe than the suspension imposed in California. The crimes of which Sparrow was convicted--the misdeeds conclusively established by the California proceedings--involved lying, subornation of perjury, stealing, and conspiracy to commit those acts as part of a sham marriage scheme designed to deceive INS. Moreover, the State Bar Court of the State Bar of California found that the conspiracy of which Sparrow was convicted was undertaken for personal gain. In such a case, disbarment is the general rule in Maryland, unless the lawyer can demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that compelling extenuating circumstances call for a different result. Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Ezrin, 312 Md. 603, 541 A.2d 966 (1988) (stealing money from law firm); Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Goldberg, 307 Md. 546, 515 A.2d 765 (1986) (misappropriation of clients' funds); Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Newman, 304 Md. 370, 499 A.2d 479 (1985) (mail fraud); Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Noren, 293 Md. 611, 446 A.2d 423 (1982) (bribery); Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Klauber, 289 Md. 446, 423 A.2d 578 (1981) (mail fraud); Bar Ass'n of Balto. City v. Siegel, 275 Md. 521, 340 A.2d 710 (1975) (false and fraudulent tax returns); Maryland St. Bar Ass'n v. Agnew, 271 Md. 543, 318 A.2d 811 (1974) (same); In the Matter of Lombard, 242 Md. 202, 218 A.2d 208 (1966) (converting assets of estate).

Sparrow insists that in his case there are compelling extenuating circumstances that should persuade us not to apply the stringent Maryland doctrine. The evidence he cites as mitigating is essentially uncontradicted and is, for the most part, contained in the extensive transcripts of the California disciplinary proceedings. It shows that Sparrow, the son of a postal clerk and a domestic servant, worked his way through college and Harvard Law School, graduating from the latter in 1969. He then served as a White House Fellow and was later employed as a lawyer with several major corporations and with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In all of these capacities, his performance was excellent and his conduct and character exemplary.

While working for one of these corporate employers, Sparrow was stationed in the Philippine Islands, where he met and married a native of that area. Eventually he and his family settled in San Diego, California, where Sparrow continued to work as a corporate lawyer. Eventually, his employer began to curtail its operations, and in order to retain Sparrow's services, offered him a transfer to Chicago. Sparrow declined, apparently because his wife insisted on remaining in the San Diego area, and left that job. His wife was running a travel agency in San Diego. Sparrow set up a solo law practice at the travel agency while seeking another corporate position.

The solo practice was eminently unsuccessful. Sparrow had had no experience at running a law office; he had no clients; he had substantial financial burdens; and he was in a period of great personal turmoil produced in part by his domineering spouse, who had insisted on remaining in San Diego instead of going to Chicago. It also appears that his spouse and some of her compatriots in the travel agency were operating the immigration scam in which Sparrow became embroiled and which brought about his 1982 conviction, along with that of his spouse.

When the Review Department of the State Bar Court recommended suspension rather than disbarment, it found as facts that Sparrow had "no prior record of discipline, he was inexperienced in private practice and his wife presented him with the opportunity to become enmeshed in the activities which led to his conviction." ⁷

All of this shows, argues Sparrow, that his participation in the immigration scheme was but a bizarre episode in an otherwise exemplary life; an episode induced by heavy domestic and financial pressures, and one that is most...