In Re Stanton

682 A.2d 655, 1996 D.C. App. LEXIS 190, 1996 WL 544374

• Court: District of Columbia Court of Appeals
• Decided: September 26, 1996
• Docket: 95-BG-325
• Status: Published

Opinions

RUIZ, Associate Judge:

This is John Stanton’s third petition for reinstatement to active practice following his suspension for a year and a day in 1983. Twice on previous petitions, this court has adopted the recommendation of the Board on Professional Responsibility that Stanton not be reinstated. The Board once again recommends against Stanton’s reinstatement, concluding that Stanton has failed to adequately establish that the “resumption of the practice of law by the attorney will not be detrimental to the integrity and standing of the Bar, or to the administration of justice, or subversive of the public interest.” D.C. Bar R. XI, § 16(d)(2). We adopt the Board’s recommendation, and deny the petition.

Stanton’s continuing difficulty demonstrating his fitness to practice arises from his unwillingness to represent clients in plea proceedings due to his deeply-held beliefs that attorney-assisted guilty pleas are unconstitutional. When Stanton was first disciplined, it was in part because he took the position that helping a client to plead guilty so contravened his proper role as a defense attorney that his only course was to attempt in open court to thwart his clients’ attempts to reach dispositions short of trial or dismissal of the case.¹ In re Stanton, 470 A.2d 272, 281 (D.C.1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 972, 104 S.Ct. 2347, 80 L.Ed.2d 821 (1984) (Stanton IA ).² In his earlier reinstatement petitions, Stanton amended his position to be that although he would not advocate on behalf of a client’s guilty plea in any situation, he also would not actively obstruct a client’s independent efforts to plead guilty in court. In re Stanton, 589 A.2d 425 (D.C.1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1098, 112 S.Ct. 1178, 117 L.Ed.2d 422 (1992) (Stanton III); In re Stanton, 532 A.2d 95 (D.C.1987) (Stanton II)3

In his present petition seeking reinstatement, Stanton has further refined his position. Specifically, Stanton states that he has shown his fitness to practice law because he “recognizes his duty to comply with the rulings of the D.C. Court of Appeals so long as they remain in force regardless of his view of their apparent wisdom or folly unless a ruling conflicts with a higher duty, and compliance causes harm that his conscience cannot countenance or condone.”⁴ Testifying before the Hearing Committee in this case, Stanton clarified his position to be that he will assist any client who “freely and intelligently chooses” to plead guilty and “expressly, directly and specifically requests” Stanton’s assistance in doing so. Stanton would assist a client only if he were adequately assured that the plea was voluntary either because the client, rather than Stanton, was able to “announce his decision to plead guilty” in open court by saying “Judge, I want to plead guilty” at the inception of the proceedings, or because the client has given Stanton “expressly, without any equivocation” a “clear directive” to initiate the plea.⁵

Stanton also stated that no client would ever, with proper regard to his interests, choose freely and intelligently to plead guilty to any charged offense. In other words, based on Stanton’s concerns with the systemic pressures criminal defendants feel to plead guilty, if a client were ever to indicate a desire to plead guilty and asked for Stanton’s assistance in doing so, the client’s very indication that he wanted to waive trial would create possibly insurmountable doubt in Stanton’s mind that the client was acting freely and intelligently. In its Report and Recommendation, which the Board adopted in its own Report, the Hearing Committee quotes Stanton as stating:

They say that a lawyer has an ethical obligation to advocate for acceptance of his client’s guilty plea. If that is the course the client fully and intelligently chooses, and after considerable thought and contemplation, I ha[ve] decided to accede to that position, because, first, I do not believe any client in fact will ever make such a choice to have me argue being an advocate for the finding of his guiltf ].

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I would [assist a client in pleading guilty in open court] with a clear, expressed directive from the client. It is never going to happen. But if it ever did, I would do it. I would do it because I know that I did not pressure the client to tell me to do it. And number two — I suppose that is reason enough. I would do it and there would not be any doubt in my mind.

(Emphasis added).

This court found previously that Stanton’s refusal to assist a client in entering a guilty plea under circumstances in which the client indicated his desire to plead contravened Disciplinary Rule 7-101(a)(l), which forbids refusing to seek a client’s lawful objectives. Stanton IA, supra, 470 A.2d at 277; see also Stanton IB, supra note 2, 470 A.2d at 289. Under In re Roundtree, 503 A.2d 1215, 1217 (D.C.1985), this court must consider whether Stanton has met his burden to prove his fitness to resume practicing law, by clear and convincing evidence, by reference to: 1) the nature and circumstances of the misconduct, 2) his recognition of the misconduct’s seriousness, 3) steps taken to remedy past and prevent future wrongs, 4) character, and 5) present competence to practice law. The Hearing Committee, in conclusions which the Board also reached, found that Stanton’s denial that any client will ever “freely and intelligently” request his assistance in pleading guilty reflected poorly on the Roundtree factors, most notably on Stanton’s readiness to prevent future misconduct. The Board further concluded that although Stanton had presented unrebutted evidence of good character, his inability to draw workable distinctions between his philosophical beliefs and his ethical obligations to his clients called into question the Roundtree factor concerning character.⁶

We adopt the Board’s recommendation, and deny the petition for reinstatement. Under Bar Rule XI, § 16(d)(2), the petitioning attorney has the “burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence” to show his fitness. Much of the determination regarding Stanton’s fitness to resume the practice of law depends upon the Hearing Committee’s opportunity to consider Stanton’s testimony at the hearing, and to observe his demeanor, in order to gauge the compatibility between his philosophical beliefs and his obligations to advise and carry out the wishes of individual clients who may, due to any number of circumstances including an aversion to the risks of trial, want to plead guilty. We defer to the Board and the Hearing Committee on findings of fact unless they are unsupported by substantial evidence in the record. See In re Kennedy, 605 A.2d 600, 603 (D.C.1992). Although Stanton purports to have pledged to comply with this court’s disciplinary rules, we cannot have confidence on this record that such rules will not conflict with what he perceives as a “higher duty” or “create[] harm that his conscience cannot condone.” Stanton’s numerous qualifications to his asserted pledge to follow his ethical obligations in this jurisdiction compel our conclusion that he has not met his burden of proving fitness with reference to the Round-tree criteria focusing on future misconduct. Stanton’s reinstatement petition is

Denied.

1 . The original disciplinary actions against Stanton involved findings of a range of misconduct, including neglect of client cases, in violation of Disciplinary Rule (DR) 6-101(A)(3), and failure to seek a client’s lawful objectives, in violation of DR 7 — J 01(A)(1). The main issue in this reinstatement proceeding, however, is Stanton's concern regarding attorney-assisted guilty pleas.

2 . On the same day, Stanton was suspended from practice for 60 days to be served concurrently with the suspension in this case. In re Stanton, 470 A.2d 281 (D.C.1983) (Stanton IB).

3 . Stanton argued that his refusal to represent clients in pleading guilty was permissible under Rule of Professional Conduct 1.2(c) that stated that "[a] lawyer may limit the objectives of the representation if the client consents after consultation.” '

4 . In his brief to this court, Stanton also argues that the order suspending him from practice should be rescinded, making this reinstatement petition unnecessary. Specifically, Stanton argues that a) the suspension order was unconstitutional because the Disciplinary Rules, as applied to him, constituted, among other things, an ex post facto law, and b) the motions procedure used in the disciplinary proceeding (now reflected in Board on Professional Responsibility Rule 7.13(a)) which deferred ruling on his motion to dismiss the allegations until after the factual record was before the Board, violated Stanton's due process rights because it denied him the opportunity to argue the unconstitutionality of the disciplinary rules as they were being applied to him.

As we have already held, Stanton failed to raise the first claim in the disciplinary proceeding in this court that led to the suspension from which he now seeks reinstatement although he was not precluded from doing so; we will not revisit the disciplinary proceeding in this reinstatement case. Stanton II, supra, 532 A.2d at 96. We note, however, with respect to the second claim, that we have already resolved it against Stanton in a disciplinary proceeding he faced which resulted in suspension from practice to run concurrently with the present suspension. Stanton IB, supra note 2, 470 A.2d at 284.

5 .According to Stanton’s testimony, a client’s statement in response to a plea offer that ”[t]hat sounds good. I want to accept that deal,” would not meet Stanton’s conditions for a client request that would trigger Stanton’s assistance in effecting a guilty plea.

6 . The Board ”d[id] not fully embrace” the Hearing Committee’s observations regarding Stanton’s competence to practice law as evidenced by his present "inability to discern an inappropriate legal argument from an appropriate one” shown in these proceedings.

The Board did not reach another question which Bar Counsel urges upon us as independent grounds to deny reinstatement: that Stanton has been engaging in the unauthorized practice of law since his suspension, in contravention of Bar Rule XI, § 14(g). Like the Board, we are persuaded that Stanton has failed to meet his burden under the Roundtree criteria, and do not address the alternative question whether he has engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.