In re Hanson
| Decision Date | 01 July 1916 |
| Docket Number | 2646 |
| Citation | 48 Utah 163,158 P. 778 |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
| Parties | IN RE HANSON |
Original proceedings upon charges filed by the bar committee of the State Bar Association against Williard Hanson a member of the bar of the Supreme Court, with a prayer for his disbarment.
Respondent suspended for sixty days and ordered to pay the costs of the proceeding.
T Marioneoux, Dickson, Ellis, Ellis & Schulder, W. T. Gunter W. H. King and Soren X. Christensen, for respondent.
A. R. Barnes, Atty. Gen., and E. O. Leatherwood, Dist. Atty., amici curiae.
OPINION
On the 16th day of April, 1914, Mr. Ray Van Cott, Mr. James H. Ball, and Mr. John Jensen, as members of the State Bar Association, and as the grievance committee of said association, filed charges against one Williard Hanson, hereinafter called defendant, as a member of the bar of this court, praying that a citation issue from this court requiring said defendant to appear and answer the charges filed against him, and that upon such hearing he be disbarred, and that, his certificate of admission to the bar of this court be revoked and canceled. This court appointed A. R. Barnes, the Attorney General of this state, and E. O. Leatherwood, the prosecuting attorney for the Third judicial district of the state, to prosecute the charges preferred against the defendant. The defendant, by his counsel, appeared and filed a motion to dismiss the charges filed against him upon various grounds. The motion was overruled, and the defendant filed an answer denying all of the charges contained in the complaint or information. On the 15th day of January, 1915, this court appointed E. O. Lee, a member of the bar of this court, referee, conferring upon him all the usual powers in such cases, and directing him to hear the evidence offered by both sides and to report his findings and conclusions to this court. The time for the hearing of the evidence, upon the request of the parties having been extended from time to time, the referee filed his final report on the 4th day of October, 1915. In said report the referee found in favor of the defendant upon the most serious charges preferred against him, but found against him upon one of the charges. Immediately upon the filing of said report defendant's counsel filed exceptions to the same, and moved this court to set aside the findings of fact and conclusions of law in so far as they were against the defendant; and counsel for the prosecution also filed exceptions thereto, and asked us to find upon the whole evidence that all the charges preferred against the defendant are true, the findings and conclusions of the referee to the contrary notwithstanding. The exceptions of both parties are no doubt based upon the theory, which is the correct one, that the referee's findings, in a large sense atleast, are merely advisory, and that we can modify any finding or make new ones to conform to the evidence as we view it.
There were a number of charges preferred, all of which were set out in the complaint with much particularity and detail. We do not deem it necessary to repeat them here, nor even to state them in substance. The evidence produced in support of them and in favor of the defendant is also quite voluminous, covering 434 pages of typewritten legal cap. We have read the evidence, and, from a consideration of the whole thereof, we feel disposed to adopt and follow the findings of the referee. That conclusion necessarily results in overruling the exceptions of counsel for both sides, as well as in denying the request of counsel for the prosecution to recast the findings so as to make them read that the charges preferred against the defendant are all sustained, and the further request of counsel for the defendant to restate those found that are against the defendant so as to make them read in his favor, or that none of the charges are sustained.
Upon the one charge referred to, the referee in substance found that the defendant was regularly employed by one Alfred Sorenson, who then stood charged with the crime of murder in the first degree by shooting to death one Gills, to defend said Sorenson; that the chief of police of Salt Lake City had in his possession a bundle of clothes, consisting of a shirt, a coat, and other articles which, at the time of the shooting, were worn by said Gillis, and that said chief of police was keeping said clothes to be used as evidence on the trial of said case; that on the 4th day of September, 1912, shortly after midnight, the defendant, pursuant to an arrangement theretofore made with one of the detectives in the employ of Salt Lake City, went to the police station where said clothes were being kept for the purpose aforesaid, and, on arriving there, entered said station from the rear and in a manner so as to avoid detection by any of the other police officers on duty, except said detective, and then and there received said clothes, which were kept in a private room, from said detective, and, immediately after receiving them, departed from said police station with said clothes, and, in doing so, again passed out of the rear door into an alley and went down said alley to one of the public streets of said city, where he was taken into custody by a police officer with the clothes in his possession upon the information given by said detective. The referee specially found that the defendant pursued the course he did in going to said police station and in receiving said clothes to avoid detection by any of the police officers.
Upon the foregoing findings the referee also made conclusions of law, in which he found that the defendant in the particulars aforesaid "acted wrongfully, stealthily, surreptitiously, and unlawfully and in a manner not in accordance with the dignity of his profession, and is guilty of unprofessional conduct in that regard." The findings are assailed as not sustained by the evidence, and the conclusions are objected to as not supported by the findings. Without stating the evidence here, it must suffice to say, for the present atleast, that we are clearly of the opinion that the referee, in view of the whole evidence, could not well have found the facts differently, nor have arrived at a different conclusion with respect to them. As before suggested, we have the right to look to the whole record to determine the quality of defendant's conduct, and the responsibility of determining what the result shall be upon the whole record likewise rests upon us. As already intimated, in view of the character of the evidence, we have no disposition to go behind the findings of the referee with respect to the charges upon which he finds in favor of the defendant.
All the authorities are agreed that to authorize the disbarment of an attorney "the charges should be clearly sustained by convincing proof and a fair preponderance of the evidence." Some courts have held "that there must be more than a preponderance of the evidence." Some courts have held "that there must be more than a preponderance of the evidence; and that the proof must satisfy the court with a reasonable certainty." 2 Thornton on Attorneys at Law, Sec. 886. It is, however, also true, and the courts practically all agree, that "the technical nicety of the criminal law is not applicable to disbarment proceedings in which the court inquires into the conduct of its own officers." Id. Sec. 887. The foregoing statements really contain the whole gist of the law, which is, sustained by...
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