Maryland State Bar Ass'n, Inc. v. Callanan

• Decision Date: 02 May 1974
• Citation: 318 A.2d 809,271 Md. 554
• Parties: MARYLAND STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, INC. v. Robert J. CALLANAN. Misc. (Subtitle BV) 6.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 554

271 Md. 554

318 A.2d 809

MARYLAND STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, INC. v. Robert J. CALLANAN.

Misc. (Subtitle BV) 6.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

May 2, 1974.

Geoffrey S. Mitchell, Baltimore, for respondent.

Wm. B. Somerville, Baltimore, for Maryland State Bar Ass's, Inc.

Argued before MURPHY, C. J., and BARNES, ^* SINGLEY, SMITH, DIGGES, LEVINE and ELDRIDGE, JJ.

DIGGES, Judge.

Robert J. Callanan, the respondent in this disciplinary proceeding, was admitted to the bar of Maryland in 1951 and since that time has practiced law in Baltimore City. On October 20, 1970 he was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland and subsequently sentenced to six months imprisonment for willfully attempting to evade the payment of almost $31,000 in income taxes due the United States for the years 1962 and 1963. Internal Revenue Code of 1954, § 7201. This conviction was affirmed in United States v. Callanan, 450 F.2d 145 (4th Cir. 1971). In its opinion, the federal circuit court, having made it clear that to support this conviction the prosecution had to show 'a substantial tax deficiency, an affirmative act by the taxpayer to attempt evasion of the tax, and that the taxpayer acted willfully' (id. at 147), then stated:

'The record discloses that this was not a close case. The government proved that time and again Callanan received fees without recording them in any book of account and indeed often without depositing them in any of his office checking accounts. Callanan's explanations were discredited, and he offered neither his own testimony not the testimony of any accountant to disprove the government's evidence.' Id. at 151.

On May 7, 1973, acting pursuant to Chapter 1100, Subtitle BV, of the Maryland Rules of Procedure, the Maryland State Bar Association filed its petition requesting that disciplinary sanctions be imposed by this Court against Mr. Callanan for these derelictions. In view of this, we directed that the charges be transmitted to the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City for a hearing by a panel of trial judges. ¹ Rule BV 3 b. On May 22, Mr. Callanan, by his answer, admitted the allegations contained in the Bar Association's petition, agreed that his criminal conviction warranted the imposition of some form of sanction, but urged that mitigating circumstances justified the prescription of no more than a reprimand or short suspension of his license to practice in this State. Following a hearing, a majority of the judicial panel concluded that there were no extenuating circumstances present, and recommended that the respondent be disbarred from the further practice of law. ²

In our decision filed today in Maryland St. Bar Ass'n v. Agnew, Md., 318 A.2d 811 (1974), we stated that willful tax evasion, proscribed by § 7201, is in that class of felonious crimes which involve moral turpitude and are infested with fraud, deceit, and dishonesty that 'will result in automatic disbarment when the respondent fails to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence a compelling reason to the contrary.' Id. at 815. As no useful purpose would be served by repeating here the reasons given for reaching this conclusion, we need only address ourselves to the question of whether the respondent has produced sufficient evidence of a 'compelling exculpatory explanation' which would justify the imposition of less than the extreme sanction.

Mr. Callanan, in his attempt to...