In re Harrell

• Decision Date: 10 July 1945
• Citation: 156 Fla. 327,23 So.2d 92
• Parties: In re HARRELL.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

23 So.2d 92

156 Fla. 327

In re HARRELL.

Florida Supreme Court

July 10, 1945

Rehearing Denied Sept. 10, 1945.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Leon County; W. May Walker, Judge.

J. Henry Harrell, of Tallahassee, in pro. per., for appellant.

J. Tom Watson, Atty. Gen., and George M. Powell, Asst. Atty. Gen for appellee.

THOMAS, Justice.

In this appeal we are asked by J. Henry Harrell, late of the Tallahassee bar to review an order of the circuit judge entered 23 September 1944 suspending him for a period of fifteen months from his office as attorney.

The record presents a sorry picture of the activities of the attorney in the procurement of a divorce for one Vincent Luther Petenbrink an army officer, and depicts a course of conduct which is the very antithesis of what is expected of an honorable and conscientious lawyer concerned in presenting properly the cases of his clients, in meriting the confidence of the court; and in earning the respect of the public for himself and his profession. Although there was an attempt to becloud the real issue in the case by means of self-serving statements, hearsay testimony, and refutation to an extreme degree of inconsequential matters, there was abundant evidence to establish rank misbehavior on the part of the attorney.

We shall now give the version of the lawyer's doings in behalf of his client, Petenbrink, as they were related by witnesses whom the court obviously believed, despite denial by appellant of many of, if not all, the main features indicating his misconduct. He was employed to obtain a divorce from the plaintiff's wife who lived in Cumberland, Maryland. The plaintiff was stationed at Camp Gordon Johnston in Florida, and the suit was instituted in Leon County. On 3 July 1944 Petenbrink appeared at the attorney's office in response to a telegram, apparently for the purpose of recording the testimony which would be presented to the chancellor in support of his bill of complaint. When he reached the attorney's office he was asked if he had any witness, and upon replying that he had none and knew of none in the City of Tallahassee he was instructed by the attorney "Get anybody. It's just matter of from; you go over there before the Judge and your witness will swear them things is the facts and the Judge will say OKay." Petenbrink swore on the witness stand that the attorney well knew his lack of acquaintance with anyone in the community who could testify in his behalf because they 'talked it over.' Following his counsel's suggestion, Petenbrink went forth in search of a witness and found, on a street of Tallahassee, a soldier, a private, whom he had never seen before, and fetched him to the lawyer's office.

Officer and private had not even seen each other before, and the latter knew nothing whatever about the wife or the marital difficulties of the parties. They went to the appellant's office, where he was busily engaged in drafting the questions and answers which were eventually to constitute the report of a master subsequently to be appointed by the court. In furtherance of their scheme of fabrication it was evidently though wise not to let the convenient witness' true name appear; so counsel and client entered into a discussion about what name should be assigned him for the occasion and hit upon 'Raymond Johnson,' the surname having been contributed by the one, the given name by the other. It was long afterward, when the trickery of these parties had been drawn to the attention of the state attorney and a provost marshal, that the true name of the witness became known to his two fellow-conspirators as Stanley Hrichuk. So then and there for the purposes of the suit a perfect stranger to the circumstances giving rise to the controversy became a material witness, and Stanley Hrichuk became Raymond Johnson; moreover, Hrichuk, alias Johnson, who had never been in Cumberland, Maryland, and who had apprised the lawyer that he had not, was supplied a residence address there, 1300 Grand Avenue.

When the report of a master not yet...