In re Roots

• Decision Date: 20 November 2000
• Docket Number: No. 2000-276-M.P.,2000-276-M.P.
• Parties: In re Application of Roger I. ROOTS.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

762 A.2d 1161

In re Application of Roger I. ROOTS.

No. 2000-276-M.P.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

November 20, 2000.

Present WEISBERGER, C.J., LEDERBERG, BOURCIER, FLANDERS, and GOLDBERG, JJ.

Steven M. McInnis, Newport, for Plaintiff.

John D. Lynch, Warwick, for Defendant.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

This case comes before us on an application by the petitioner Roger I. Roots (petitioner or Roots) seeking admission to the bar of the State of Rhode Island. Roots, who was born in October, 1967, is a 1999 graduate of the Roger Williams University School of Law. Following his law-school graduation, he took and passed the Rhode Island bar examination. In accordance with its usual procedures, this Court's Committee on Character and Fitness (committee) examined Roots's record and interviewed him after he had passed the bar examination. Because the committee had serious concerns relating to his character and fitness to become a member of the bar of this state, it conducted a number of hearings to determine whether it would recommend Roots's admission to the bar. As a result of these hearings, the committee in November 1999 voted on his application. The vote of the committee was five in favor of his admission and two opposed.

After this vote, members of the committee circulated memoranda setting forth the views of the majority of the committee and also the views of the minority. The committee conducted a further investigation to determine whether additional information existed that should be taken into account. Upon determining that no additional information, other than that already obtained by the committee, was available, the committee called a meeting for April 12, 2000. Before the date of that meeting, the membership of the committee had changed. One member had resigned and the Attorney General's designee had been replaced. The person who replaced the member who had resigned recused herself from participation in the vote on April 12. The Attorney General's new designee, however, did participate in the vote. The committee then voted, resulting in a recommendation by four members to admit the petitioner and a recommendation by two members to reject his application. Three members of the majority wrote a memorandum in support of their recommendation. One member of the majority presented a separate concurring memorandum that expressed serious doubts about the petitioner's candor and honesty, but nevertheless recommended his admission. The minority members submitted two separate memoranda. The chairman of the committee, who had voted against the admission of petitioner, wrote one memorandum; the Attorney General's designee wrote a separate memorandum.¹

To avoid an unduly long recitation of the pertinent facts concerning Roots's application, the various reports that the majority and minority members prepared are attached to this opinion and made a part hereof. The report of the majority is appended and marked as exhibit A. The concurring report recommending admission is appended and marked as exhibit B. The minority report that Chairman Steven M. McInnis wrote is appended and marked as exhibit C. The dissenting opinion of the Attorney General's designee is appended and marked as exhibit D. All these reports contain very similar accounts of the factual elements underlying the reports of the members of the committee. Nevertheless, we shall attempt to set forth in this opinion the important facts and circumstances that we believe justify our conclusion.

Through its hearings and by examining the material submitted in support of and in opposition to the application, the committee sought to resolve three major areas of concern about the petitioner: (1) his criminal record; (2) his candor and veracity; and (3) his ability to take and abide by the attorney's oath. Some of the evidence was documentary in nature. In addition, extensive testimony was taken from the petitioner himself. The three areas of concern shall be dealt with separately in this opinion.

Standard of Review

We will not overturn a recommendation of this Court's Committee on Character and Fitness (committee) unless it has "abused its discretion or its decision is clearly wrong." In re Application of Capace, 110 R.I. 254, 259, 291 A.2d 632, 634 (1972). We will do so, however, if "such recommendation is not well founded." In re Testa, 489 A.2d 331, 334 (R.I.1985). Here, the committee's various opinions — three-in-favor-of admission, one concurring, and two dissents — show that the committee itself was sharply divided in its views about whether to recommend the admission of Roots to the bar. Indeed, the opinion of the concurring member who provided the decisive fourth vote in favor of admission (see exhibit B) contains strong reservations about whether Roots should be admitted to the bar at all. Thus, this is not a situation in which the committee was of one mind and then submitted a unanimous and unqualified recommendation to us concerning the admission of a candidate. On the contrary, the committee has submitted multiple opinions with only a bare majority of the committee favoring Roots's admission. And even that majority is tenuous, given the concurring member's strong reservations and the other members' own misgivings about Roots's qualifications. After reviewing these submissions, we are persuaded that the dissenters succeed in showing why the majority's recommendation in favor of admission is not well founded. In any event, the committee's troubled majority vote was far from a resounding endorsement of Roots's admission to the bar. Accordingly, we do not believe that the majority of the committee's recommendation merits the usual deference that we would give to one that was not as clouded by dissents and as hedged around by reservations as is this one.

For these reasons and those discussed below, we are of the opinion that Roots's application should be denied without prejudice to Roots reapplying at some later date after he has proven that he has truly rehabilitated himself.

I Petitioner's Criminal Record

In 1985, when he was eighteen years old, Roots was charged with and convicted of shoplifting in the State of Florida. He had relocated there after leaving his home in Montana during his freshman year in high school. In his bar application, Roots admitted that, following his arrest for this crime, he "failed to appear at [his] scheduled hearing on the matter." He conceded that he was aware that he needed to attend the hearing but claims that his immaturity at the time caused him to disregard the court's order. Within two months, however, the Orlando police rearrested him on the same charge. He was then detained until he could be presented to a judge. And even though the court still treated him with leniency, Roots shirked his responsibility to abide by the terms of his probation when he failed to perform the community-service condition of his sentence. (He admitted in his application to the bar that he just "left Orlando without performing the community service.")

Within a year, however, he was arrested again in Florida and convicted of yet another crime, the felony of resisting arrest with violence. Generally, this crime involves disobeying, with the use of force (as opposed to mere flight), a police officer's lawful attempt to arrest an alleged criminal. See Fla. Stat. Ann. § 843.01 (West 2000). As reflected in the police report and in Roots's law school application, the alleged facts of the crime reveal that Roots's truck had collided with another vehicle. A police officer arrived at the accident scene and an argument ensued between Roots and the officer. When the officer learned that Roots had failed to pay two fines for separate moving violations and was driving on a suspended license, he attempted to take Roots into custody but Roots physically resisted the arrest. Although a federal sentencing judge would later characterize this incident as minor because, in attempting to subdue Roots, the police officer struck the only actual blow, a Florida sentencing judge, who presumably was more familiar with the relevant facts and circumstances, ultimately sentenced Roots to fifty-one weeks in prison following his nolo contendere plea after he again violated his initial three-year-probation sentence.²

The petitioner then left Florida and moved to Wyoming, where he attended the Northwest Community College in Powell, Wyoming. While there, he exhibited in class a homemade air gun that he had constructed. (This may have been part of a speech presentation.) Because the authorities knew that petitioner had a prior record, they searched his dormitory room. There, they found additional weapons, including an automatic pistol, an automatic rifle with approximately 500 rounds of ammunition, and an assault rifle described as an AK-47. The petitioner was charged in federal court with being a felon in possession of firearms and with the possession of an unregistered firearm in violation of various federal statutes. Pursuant to a plea agreement, petitioner pled guilty to the registration count (relating to the air gun).³ The other counts were dismissed. A federal judge sentenced petitioner to twenty months in federal prison on January 10, 1992. This sentence terminated on April 4, 1993. As previously mentioned, the federal judge indicated that the petitioner's felony conviction for resisting arrest with violence in Florida was not as serious an offense as might appear on the surface since the only injury was to the officer's hand when he struck the petitioner in the face. Nevertheless, it was established that in purchasing the various weapons, the petitioner had filled out a number of forms in which he had misrepresented his status as a person convicted of a felony in Florida.

The applicant's criminal record also includes the following:

(1) On at least eight occasions from the spring of 1986 to as recently as the winter of 1997, Roots was caught speeding and...