Schoolfield v. Tennessee Bar Ass'n

• Decision Date: 08 December 1961
• Citation: 209 Tenn. 304,353 S.W.2d 401,13 McCanless 304
• Parties: Raulston SCHOOLFIELD v. The TENNESSEE BAR ASSOCIATION and The Chattanooga Bar Association. 13 McCanless 304, 209 Tenn. 304, 353 S.W.2d 401
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 401

353 S.W.2d 401

Raulston SCHOOLFIELD v. The TENNESSEE BAR ASSOCIATION and The Chattanooga Bar Association.

13 McCanless 304, 209 Tenn. 304, 353 S.W.2d 401

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Dec. 8, 1961.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 8, 1962.

Ray L. Brock, Jr., John B. Taylor, Chattanooga, for petitioner.

John Clarence Evans, Charles H. Warfield, William H. Woods, Nashville, Paul Campbell, Chattanooga, for respondents.

PREWITT, Chief Justice.

This is a disbarment proceedings against the petitioner, Raulston Schoolfield, resulting from a bill filed by the Tennessee Bar Association and the Chattanooga Bar Association. In this opinion these associations will be referred to as complaints and Raulston Schoolfield as defendant, this being their designation in the trial court.

There was a hearing before the Honorable Knox Bigham sitting by designation, and in this hearing the defendant was permanently disbarred from the practice of law in this State, and a decree so ordering was entered.

In due course an appeal was taken to the Court of Appeals and was heard by the Western Division of that Court and the decree of the Chancellor was affirmed, Judge Carney dissenting.

We have heretofore granted certiorari, and the cause has been argued orally at the Bar of this Court. $It should be observed here that both the trial court and the Court of Appeals have decreed that the defendant be permanently disbarred from the practice of law in the Courts of this State.

In the trial court the complainants relied upon the record of the impeachment proceedings in the State Senate of Tennessee, wherein the defendant, Schoolfield, then the Criminal Court Judge of Hamilton County, was impeached (1) accepting as a gift a new Pontiac automobile, (2) engaging in active politics and (3) using profane and obscene language while acting as judge.

It should be observed that the defendant was licensed to practice law by this Court by virtue of our statutes regulating the applicants for admission to the Bar. The granting of a law license is a privilege and may be revoked at any time by this Court for good and satisfactory reasons, one of which is that the holder of this license has been guilty of such conduct as renders him unfit to further pursue the practice of law.

This privilege having been granted by this Court, we can take judicial knowledge of the impeachment proceedings heretofore referred to, and use the findings in said trial to determine whether or not the defendant is guilty and should be disbarred.

It is not what the defendant says he was convicted of, but what the convictions were actually for, that brought about this disbarment proceeding.

What the defendant was actually convicted of by Article 8 was accepting a gift of a Pontiac automobile, the money to purchase same having been solicited and collected by Jim Earl West, the defendant's court officer, from known law violators, who had cases then pending, or thereafter pending in the Criminal Court presided over by the defendant. Also, lawyers, who practiced in said court, were solicited by the defendant's court officer, and made contributions to the purchase money of this automobile.

Conviction of this Article 8 also was for accepting this automobile the defendant in return for favors extended, and to be extended by him to some of the donors through his official capacity as Criminal Judge of Hamilton County.

Likewise, the defendant was found guilty of Article of Impeachment No. 19 which charged, not just that he, 'engaged in active politics,' but that he used the power of his judicial office to promote the candidacy of political friends and engaged in such conduct openly and notoriously, and that he used the power of his office to either persuade or dissuade persons participating in political activity to become or refrain from becoming candidates for public office. That he commanded and directed political actions of persons, who were known law violators and racketeers, many of whom had criminal cases pending and awaiting trial in the court presided over by the defendant, and that he met and associated with known law violators, gamblers and racketeers at shady and questionable places while a judge of the Criminal Court in order to coerce, command, and direct these characters to do his political will, and that by all of such activities his office was brought into public contempt.

The defendant was found guilty of Article of Impeachment No. 22, in that he used profane and obscene language, both privately and in public, which conduct was widely known in Hamilton County to such an extent as to bring his high office into public contempt, disgrace and disrespect.

The defendant contended that his acts as a judge should not disqualify him as a member of the Bar. He contends there is a conflict between the holdings of the Court of Appeals in this case and holdings in two other recent cases.

There is no conflict with the decision in Bar Association v. Freeman (Court of Appeals, Middle Section, June, 1961) because there Freeman was not even a party to the divorce action which was one of the grounds of the disbarment petition.

The case of Bar Association v. Berke, Tenn.App., 344 S.W.2d 567, is not in conflict with the case here, or the Freeman case, because that disbarment proceeding was predicated on a judgment of a court in a civil case for money damages, and the opinion of the trial court, and the Court of Appeals in that case clearly indicated that the basis of the dismissal of the case was due to the fact that the defendant had been punished enough.

It also appears that the petition in this cause for disbarment the defendant had on two occasions been before the Supreme Court for disciplinary actions in matters which he was found guilty.

In the first of these incidents, defendant impersonated another and took the Bar examination for some other person.

The second incident related to the refusal of the defendant to represent two defendants jointly indicted for burglary for which he was fined for contempt of court, which action this Court sustained.

We are of the opinion that the Chancellor was correct in striking certain statements and defenses of defendant's answer which sought to show that the judgment and findings of the impeachment court were void.

Our reasons for so sustaining the action of the Chancellor are because:

(1) the impeachment tribunal acted within its jurisdiction;

(2) the question of reapportionment is not a judicial question;

(3) officials may be impeached for crimes not so defined by the statutes or common law,

(4) the Senate exercised judicial power, and its judgment in entitled to full faith; and as it acted within its jurisdiction, its procedures are not to be questioned by another court.

In Re Stolen, 193 Wis. 602, 214 N.W. 379, 216 N.W. 127, 55 A.L.R. 1355, the Court said:

'One of the requisite qualifications for one who holds the office of an attorney at law is that he or she shall be of good moral character, in so far as it relates to the discharge of the duties and responsibilities of an attorney at law. This is a continuing qualification. It is a qualification necessary to entitle one to admission to the bar, and the loss of such qualification requires his suspension. The respondent is a member of the bar of this court. The charges preferred against him challenge his moral integrity. Just as it was the duty of this court to refuse him admission in the first instance upon a showing that he lacked the necessary moral qualifications, so is it its duty now to remove him upon like proof. * * * Its present concern is only that the act complained of discloses a lack of moral character constituting a continuing qualification to entitle him to remain a member of the bar of this court. * * * 'One's morality or lack of morality is revealed by general conduct. One may lack morality in a great many ways. Where this lack of morality has no relation to, and does not affect, his duties and responsibilities as an attorney at law, the delinquencies are generally overlooked...