Proposed Disciplinary Action by Florida Bar Against Circuit Judge, In re

• Decision Date: 11 June 1958
• Citation: 103 So.2d 632
• Parties: In re PROPOSED DISCIPLINARY ACTION BY The FLORIDA BAR AGAINST a CIRCUIT JUDGE of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 632

103 So.2d 632

In re PROPOSED DISCIPLINARY ACTION BY The FLORIDA BAR AGAINST a CIRCUIT JUDGE of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida.

Supreme Court of Florida.

June 11, 1958.

Wm. A. McRae, Jr., Bartow, for petitioner.

Maxwell W. Wells, Cecil H. Brown, Orlando, David S. Yoakley, Palm Beach, and William A. Foster, West Palm Beach, for The Florida Bar, respondent.

DREW, Justice.

Petitioner, a circuit judge, seeks an order directing the Florida Bar to cease and desist from taking disciplinary action against him and declaring that the Florida Bar is without jurisdiction to apply or enforce the disciplinary provisions of the Integration Rule against him. The applicable rules and provisions of our laws (except amended Article V of the Constitution, F.S.A.) are fully cited in a recent opinion of this Court, In re Investigation of Circuit Judge, Fla., 93 So.2d 601, upon which petitioner principally relies in this proceeding.

The Florida Bar in its response, however, disclaims any intention of instituting or progressing disciplinary proceedings against petitioner for or on account of any act of his as a judge. It asserts that the disciplinary matter involving petitioner being considered by the Florida Bar relates solely to alleged acts of petitioner as and while an attorney and member of the Florida Bar prior to his becoming a circuit judge. It is contended that the above cited decision is inapplicable because the Court there considered matters for which impeachment would lie, and in deciding that impeachment was the exclusive remedy predicated its conclusion on the doctrine of expressio unius exclusio alterius.

The distinction is, in our opinion, without merit. While we recognize that the alleged conduct of petitioner prior to assumption of his judicial post could not serve as the basis for impeachment proceedings against him, it cannot be denied that the action undertaken by the Bar has no legitimate objective other than the ultimate removal of petitioner from office, a result intended under our Constitution to be accomplished only by impeachment. Disbarment would not, of course, operate directly to remove petitioner from office, but all parties concede that disqualification proceedings would logically follow therefrom. This is, in fact, the only practical purpose which would be served by disciplinary action against such a judicial officer, since under the law of this State he is, during his incumbency, clothed with no other right by virtue of his membership in the Bar. His lesser office as an attorney is, during the period of incumbency, merged in and absorbed by the greater office, that of circuit judge. Application of the Integration Rule to petitioner would thus accomplish indirectly what cannot be done directly by judicial action.

Since the assumption of judicial duties suspends all rights and privileges to engage in the practice of law (Sec. 18, Art. V. Florida Constitution), it should, logically, operate as a suspension of disciplinary procedures designed simply to ensure that such rights and privileges shall not be exercised by one who has shown himself unfit to practice law, and not to penalize or punish the offending member. Application of Harper, Fla., 84 So.2d 700, 702, 54 A.L.R.2d 1272.

In Application of Harper, supra, this Court held that disciplinary proceedings against attorneys are provided for and are instituted in the public interest to preserve the purity of the courts, and that a judgment in such proceedings can only be one affecting the formerly granted permit to practice as an attorney or cancelling and striking the name of such offending attorney from the roll of attorneys in this State.

It is argued by the Florida Bar that the provisions of Section 23, Article V of the Florida Constitution, (which became effective subsequent to our decision in Investigation of Circuit Judge, supra) vest in this Court exclusive jurisdiction over the discipline of persons admitted to the practice of law in this State, and that, inasmuch as Section 13 of said Article V provides that judges of the Supreme Court, the district courts and the circuit courts, to be eligible for office, must be a member of the Florida Bar in good standing, such Article vested in this Court the jurisdiction and authority to discipline a circuit judge for any alleged unethical conduct engaged in by him prior to his ascendency to the Bench. Inherent in this agrument is the proposition that the Constitution vests in this Court the power to discipline-even to the extent of disbarment-those members of the Florida Bar who occupy the position of justices of this Court or judges of the district or circuit courts. We find no such plan in amended Article V, and the events leading to the approval in the Legislature of said Article and its adoption by the people, still fresh in the minds of this Court,...