Ex Parte Latham

• Decision Date: 21 September 1931
• Docket Number: 29421
• Citation: 161 Miss. 243,136 So. 625
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: EX PARTE LATHAM

136 So. 625

161 Miss. 243

EX PARTE LATHAM

No. 29421

Supreme Court of Mississippi

September 21, 1931

Disbarment proceedings against S. A. Latham, an attorney at law. Motion to enter judgment by default overruled, and proceeding remanded with directions.

(In Banc.)

1 JUDGMENT.

Court cannot proceed to judgment without fact of service of notice or citation being officially shown of record.

2. ATTORNEY AND CUENT.

Unsworn information in disbarment proceeding against attorney cannot be taken pro confesso.

3. ATTORNEY AND CLIENT.

Charges and Information against attorney in disbarment proceedings must be proved, notwithstanding respondent's default of answer.

Disbarment proceedings against S. A. Latham, an attorney at law. Motion to enter judgment by default overruled, and proceeding remanded with directions.

Judgment overruled and proceeding remanded.

Jeff Truly, of Fayette, J. H. Currie, of Meridian, W. S. Welch, of Laurel, L. A. Smith, Sr., of Holly Springs, W. C. Sweat, of Corinth, and Louis M. Jiggitts, of Jackson, Special Grievance Committee, Mississippi State Bar Association.

L. C. Hallam, of Jackson, for respondent.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

On the 27th day of February, 1931, there was filed in this court, by a special committee of the State Bar Association, an information against the respondent Latham, wherein the said respondent, a licensed attorney of this court, was charged with specific acts of gross misbehavior, upon which charges the said association suggested the disbarment of said respondent. It is not stated in said information so filed or in any affidavit or other paper made a part of this record whether the said respondent Latham is a resident of this state or whether now a nonresident, and if the latter be the case what is his present residence and post office and street address; and there is no return of citation, nor anything else of record in that respect except a recital on the clerk's docket as follows: "Citation issued 2/21/31," and a return registry receipt mailed from Aurora, Illinois, and purporting to have been signed by said respondent, not personally but by an agent. Whether this registry receipt was for the citation and copy of the information mailed to respondent by the clerk, the record fails to show, and owing to the grievous misfortune to the state in the death of the clerk who personally handled this matter, the record cannot now be officially supplied or amend...