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

• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland
• Writing for the Court: SINGLEY
• Citation: 335 A.2d 108,274 Md. 368
• Decision Date: 10 April 1975
• Parties: MARYLAND STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, INC. v. Stuart Edward HIRSCH. Misc. (Subtitle BV) 4.

Page 368

274 Md. 368 335 A.2d 108 MARYLAND STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, INC.
v.
Stuart Edward HIRSCH. Misc. (Subtitle BV) 4. Court of Appeals of Maryland. April 10, 1975.
Certiorari Denied June 16, 1975. See 95 S.Ct. 2638.

[335 A.2d 109]

Page 369

Stuart Edward Hirsch, Towson, for petitioner.

Robert E. Powell, Baltimore (Joseph I. Pines, Baltimore, on the Answer), for respondent.

Argued before SINGLEY, SMITH, DIGGES, LEVINE, ELDRIDGE and O'DONNELL, JJ.

Page 370

SINGLEY, Judge.

Stuart Edward Hirsch was admitted to the Maryland Bar in October, 1963. He was in private practice until 1968, when he became an Assistant State's Attorney for Baltimore County. On 1 July 1972, he became Deputy State's Attorney for the County and remained in that position until he was discharged on 21 July 1973.

On 7 June 1974, there was filed with this Court by Maryland State Bar Association, Inc. (the Bar Association) a petition asking that appropriate disciplinary action be taken against Mr. Hirsch. Hirsch was charged with the following violations, among others, of the Disciplinary Rules of the American Bar Association Code of Professional Responsibility: DR 1-102(A)(3) (conduct involving moral turpitude); DR 1-102(A)(4) (conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation); DR 1-102(A)(5) (conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice); DR 1-102(A)(6) (conduct adversely reflecting on his integrity and fitness to practice law); DR 1-102(A)(1) and DR 1-103(A) (failure to report unprivileged knowledge of violations of Disciplinary Rules and of possible criminal conduct).

As permitted by Maryland Rule BV3 b, we referred to the matter for hearing and determination to a panel of judges of the Fifth Judicial Circuit of Maryland, consisting[335 A.2d 110] of Judges Matthew S. Evans, Ridgely P. Melvin, Jr., and James L. Wray. ¹

The matter came on for hearing on the Bar Association's petition and amended petition and Mr. Hirsch's answer and amended answer. The Bar Association submitted as exhibits transcripts of testimony in four matters, which were admitted over Hirsch's objection:

(i) Hirsch's testimony for the State in State of Maryland v. Louis William Irvin, Circuit Court for Baltimore County;

(ii) Hirsch's testimony for the State in State of

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Maryland v. Samuel A. Green, Jr., Circuit Court for Baltimore County;

(iii) A part of Hirsch's deposition in Stuart E. Hirsch v. Samuel A. Green, Jr., United States District Court for the District of Maryland; and,

(iv) Hirsch's testimony and that of his witnesses at a hearing before a panel of the Committee on Grievances of the Bar Association, In the Matter of Stuart E. Hirsch.

The evidence before the three-judge panel was that in June, 1972, when Mr. Hirsch was an Assistant State's Attorney for Baltimore County under State's Attorney Samuel A. Green, Jr., and a vacancy occurred in the office of the Deputy State's Attorney, Hirsch applied for the position. Green told him that the job was his, that his salary would be increased from $12,000.00 to $17,000.00, but that Hirsch was expected to pay Green $1,000.00. After Hirsch was sworn in, he paid Green $500.00 in cash. Later, Hirsch gave Green two $100.00 tickets to a fund raising dinner, followed by a check for $200.00, which, at Green's request, Hirsch charged, apparently as an expense, to a divorce case in which Hirsch had participated in his private practice. The final $100.00 was forgiven when, according to Hirsch, Green was permitted to use his apartment 'for sexual purposes.'

According to Hirsch's testimony at the Green trial (ii, above), Hirsch, testifying as a prosecution witness, admitted that he had been guilty of 'conspiracy to obstruct justice, bribery, false pretenses, two counts of false pretenses, possibly accessory after the fact of bribery' and conceded that total penalties of 53 years could be imposed. In the hearing before the Bar Association committee (iv, above), Hirsch contended that he had been mistaken when he characterized his conduct as bribery, but maintained instead that he was an innocent victim of extortion. In his deposition in Hirsch v. Green (iii, above), there had been a clear admission by Hirsch that he was guilty of bribery and that he knew it at the time:

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'Q So as I understand it you admit that you bribed the State's Attorney of Baltimore County for your job?

'A. I will admit that he solicited a bribe from me that I paid.'

The second episode in which the panel found Hirsch to have been engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation in violation of DR 1-102(A)(4), and illegal conduct involving moral turpitude prohibited by DR 1-102(A)(3), resulted from an effort by Kneass Harrington to have expunged from the police records a charge of violation of the gambling laws, which had been nolle prossed.

In July, 1972, Harrington had approached Louis W. Irvin, an investigator for the office of the Baltimore County's State's Attorney about this. Irvin talked to Hirsch, who in turn prepared a petition to expunge Harrington's record. Because [335 A.2d 111] Hirsch said he regarded his signing the petition as involving a clear conflict of interest, at Green's suggestion, he asked another member of the bar, Stephen L. Miles, to sign it. Miles did so, the order was routinely signed by a judge, and the record was ultimately expunged from the Baltimore County police department records.

In January, 1973, ² after an investigation of the State's Attorney's office by the Attorney General had commenced, Hirsch said he learned for the first time that Irvin had received $750.00 from...