Legal Ethics v. Printz
Annotate this Case
January 1992 Term
____________
No. 20665
____________
COMMITTEE ON LEGAL ETHICS
OF THE WEST VIRGINIA STATE BAR,
Complainant
v.
CHARLES F. PRINTZ, JR.,
Respondent
____________________________________________________
Recommendation of
The Committee on Legal Ethics
Disciplinary Proceeding
Complaint No. 89-190
CHARGES DISMISSED
____________________________________________________
Submitted: January 14, 1992
Filed: March 23, 1992
Sherri D. Goodman, Esq.
The West Virginia State Bar
Charleston, West Virginia
Attorney for the Complainant
Franklin D. Cleckley, Esq.
Morgantown, West Virginia
Attorney for the Respondent
JUSTICE NEELY delivered the Opinion of the Court.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT
1. "This Court is the final arbiter of legal ethics
problems and must make the ultimate decisions about public
reprimands, suspensions or annulments of attorneys' licenses to
practice law." Syllabus Point 3, Committee on Legal Ethics v.
Blair, 174 W. Va. 494, 327 S.E.2d 671 (1984).
2. Disciplinary Rule 7-105(a) of the Code of
Professional Responsibility (1978) does not apply to otherwise
legitimate negotiations undertaken on behalf of a client.
3. Penal statutes may become void under the doctrine of
desuetude if:
(1) The statute proscribes only acts that are
malum prohibitum and not malum in se;
(2) There has been open, notorious and pervasive
violation of the statute for a long period;
and
(3) There has been a conspicuous policy of
nonenforcement of the statute.
4. W. Va. Code, 61-5-19 [1923] is void under the
doctrine of desuetude to the extent that it prohibits a victim or
his agent from seeking restitution in lieu of a criminal
prosecution.
Neely, J.:
In this attorney disciplinary proceeding, the Committee
on Legal Ethics of the West Virginia State Bar recommends that this
Court publicly reprimand Charles F. Printz, Jr., for violation of
Disciplinary Rule 7-105(A) of the Code of Professional
Responsibility (1978)See footnote 1 for his role in negotiations between his
father and an embezzler formerly employed by his father. After
independently examining the record, we disagree with the Board's
recommendations, and we find that the complaint against Mr. Printz
should be dismissed.
I.
In 1986, Charles F. Printz, Sr., owner of Kable Oil Company, audited company financial records and discovered that $200,000 was missing. Larry Kesecker, the manager of Kable Oil, admitted that he embezzled the money. Neither Mr. Printz nor Mr. Kesecker wanted this case to be prosecuted criminally because Mr. Printz and Mr. Kesecker had developed a close personal relationship and because a criminal prosecution would embarrass Kable Oil. Therefore, Mr. Kesecker, Mr. Printz and Charles F. Printz, Jr., the
respondent (and son of Charles F. Printz, Sr.), entered
negotiations for repayment of the embezzled money. As a result of
these negotiations, the respondent prepared a written confession
for Mr. Kesecker to sign, as well as an agreement by Mr. Kesecker
to sell his house, motorcycle and other personal property, and to
turn over the proceeds to Kable Oil.
After an in-depth audit of Kable Oil showed that the
missing funds actually totalled $395,515, Mr. Kesecker agreed to
continue working at Kable Oil until it was sold in December, 1986.
Mr. Kesecker also agreed to allow his therapist to turn over to the
respondent notes from counseling sessions in order to help the
respondent find the missing funds. On 15 July 1987, the respondent
held a meeting at which Mr. Printz, Sr., Mr. Kesecker and Mr.
Kesecker's father, Donald, were present. Although the parties
dispute who called the meeting, the purpose of the meeting
unquestionably was to determine if Donald Kesecker would cover the
losses caused by his son. Donald Kesecker was unwilling to do so.
On 26 August 1987, the respondent sent Larry Kesecker a "final demand" letter. In this letter he gave Mr. Kesecker the choice of agreeing to a strict financial arrangement for repayment of the embezzled money or criminal prosection. On 2 September 1987, Mr. Kesecker responded with a letter accepting the financial arrangement set out by the respondent. However, after Mr. Kesecker
retained a lawyer, negotiations broke down and, then, Mr. Printz,
Sr. notified law enforcement authorities of the embezzlement. Mr.
Kesecker pleaded guilty to embezzlement, was required to make
restitution, and received five years probation.
II.
The Committee contends that the respondent should be
reprimanded publicly for violation of Disciplinary Rule 7-105(A) of
the Code of Professional Responsibility (1978). Noting that "this
is admittedly an unusual case," the Committee nevertheless finds
Mr. Printz's actions worthy of the minimum sanction, a public
reprimand. However, as we stated in Syllabus Point 3 of Committee
on Legal Ethics v. Blair, 174 W. Va. 494, 327 S.E.2d 671 (1984):
This Court is the final arbiter of legal
ethics problems and must make the ultimate
decisions about public reprimands, suspensions
or annulments of attorneys' licenses to
practice law.
III.
In 1989, West Virginia replaced the Code of Professional Responsibility with the Rules of Professional Conduct. The Committee is correct that the replacement of the Code by the Rules does not absolve lawyers' actions in 1987 from the ethical guidelines set forth in the Code. However, we have taken into
consideration the reasons for the omission of a counterpart to
DR 7-105(A) in the new Rules. As stated by Professors Hazard and
Hodes:
Rule 4.4 does not incorporate the
prohibition originally found in DR 7-105(A) of
the Code of Professional Responsibility, which
provided that "a lawyer shall not present,
participate in presenting, or threaten to
present criminal charges solely to obtain an
advantage in a civil matter." Nor does this
prohibition appear elsewhere in the Rules of
Professional Conduct; it was deliberately
omitted as redundant or overbroad or both.
The ethical ban on threatening criminal
prosecution is redundant because in some
jurisdictions it covers much the same ground
as the crimes of extortion and compounding
crime, and Rule 8.4 makes it a disciplinary
offense for a lawyer to commit such
crimes. . . .
Of course in many jurisdictions (and in the
Model Penal Code), even overt threats are not
criminally punishable if they are based on a
claim of right, or if there is an honest
belief that the charges are well founded. In
those jurisdictions, the lawyer's actions
could be a crime only if the lawyer sought
more of the other party's property than he
believed his client was entitled to. With
respect to compounding crime, many
jurisdictions excuse the victims of crime who
seek restitution in exchange for an agreement
not to report.
But these exceptions only point toward the
second defect of rules like DR 7-105(A): they
are overbroad because they prohibit legitimate
pressure tactics and negotiation strategies.
DR 7-105(A) evidently meant to push beyond
extortion and compounding crime, but without
any coherent limit.
In reality, many situations arise in which a lawyer's communications on behalf of a client cannot avoid addressing conduct by another party that is both criminal and tortious. Inevitably, the question of which remedial
routes will be taken must also be addressed.
An example is where a lawyer for a financial
corporation must deal with an employee who has
been discovered in embezzlement. In general,
the client corporation is interested in
recovering as much of its money as possible,
and there is also a public interest in
enforcement of the criminal law. These
interests are not always compatible, however,
for it may well be in the interest of the
company to have the employee pay back the
money and quietly resign, without the adverse
publicity that a criminal trial would bring to
the corporation as well as to the employee.
Lurking near the surface is [sic] this
calculus can be uncertainty about whether the
employee's crime can be proved beyond a
reasonable doubt, and the risk that the
employee might sue for wrongful discharge or
defamation if the employer does file a
criminal accusation.
In these circumstances it is
counterproductive to prohibit the lawyer from
discussing with the employee, or the
employee's counsel, the possibilities noted
above. Indeed, competent representation would
seem to require the lawyer to press ahead with
such full-ranging negotiations. Yet, so long
as DR 7-105(A) was on the books, the lawyer
had to worry whether she would commit
professional misconduct if she even mentioned
these possibilities. Indeed, the situation
can degenerate into implicit or even explicit
blackmail against the lawyer, to pressure the
lawyer into recommending to her client that
criminal prosecution not even be considered or
discussed. Faced with such restrictions (even
without the added factor of blackmail), some
lawyers might simply avoid the issue, while
others might resort to code words and
euphemisms. In either event, the client
corporation in the example could be seriously
disserved. [Footnotes omitted.] [Emphasis
added.]
Hazard and Hodes, The Law of Lawyering, A Handbook on the Model
Rules of Professional Conduct, §4.4:103 (Prentice Hall Law &
Business 1990).
We find this reasoning persuasive. The rules of legal
ethics should not prohibit lawyers from engaging in otherwise
legitimate negotiations. However, there are limits as Rule 4.4 of
the West Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct [1989] provides the
appropriate standards to guide a lawyer's conduct in these matters.
Rule 4.4 states:
In representing a client, a lawyer shall not
use means that have no substantial purpose
other than to embarrass, delay, or burden a
third person, or use methods of obtaining
evidence that violate the legal rights of such
a person.
All parties to this case might have been served better if
the negotiations had continued and a prosecution had never ensued.
However, this finding does not exonerate Mr. Printz completely. It
exonerates him only if his actions were otherwise legitimate.
IV.
W. Va. Code, 61-5-19 [1923] provides:
If any person, knowing of the commission of
an offense, take any money, or reward, or an
engagement therefor, upon an agreement or
undertaking, expressed or implied, to compound
or conceal such offense, or not to prosecute
therefor, or not to give evidence thereof, he
shall, if such offense be a felony, be guilty
of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, be
confined in jail not more than one year and
fined not exceeding five hundred dollars; and
if such offense be not a felony, unless it be
punishable merely by a forfeiture to him, he
may be confined in jail not more than six
months, and shall be fined not exceeding one
hundred dollars.
The history of W. Va. Code, 61-5-19 [1923], can be traced at least
as far back as the Statute of 18 Elizabeth, Chapter 5, which
states, in pertinent part:
And be it further enacted, That no such
informer or plaintiff shall or may compound or
agree with any person or persons that shall
offend, or shall be surmised to offend,
against any penal statute, for such offence
committed, or pretended to be committed, but
after answer made in court into the
information or suit in that behalf exhibited
or prosecuted . . . .
The purpose of this statute was to discourage "the making of
improper exactions, and not to punish persons by whom such awards
are paid." Aikman v. Wheeling, 120 W. Va. 46, 50, 195 S.E.2d 667,
___ (1938).
W. Va. Code, 61-5-19 [1923], on its face prohibits
offering not to prosecute a crime in exchange for the return of
funds lost due to a crime. Thus, the respondent's actions in this
case appear to violate W. Va. Code, 61-5-19 [1923].
V.
U. S. Const., Amend. XIV, Section 1, provides:
All persons born or naturalized in the
United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States and
of the State wherein they reside. No State
shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny
to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.
The Due Process Clause requires that a person not be
convicted under "a statute which either forbids or requires the
doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence
must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its
application . . . ." Cline v. Frink Dairy Company, 274 U.S. 445,
459 (1926) (citing Connally v. General Construction Company, 269 U.S. 385, 391 (1926).) The United States Supreme Court has long
held that convictions under vague statutes are inconsistent with
the notions of fair play and a violation of due process under the
Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. See, e.g., Papachristou v. City
of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1971); Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451 (1939); Cline v. Frink Dairy Company, 274 U.S. 445 (1926);
Connally v. General Construction Company, 269 U.S. 385 (1926);
United States v. Cohen Grocery Company, 255 U.S. 81 (1921).
Vague statutes violate due process because they do not
allow fair warning to those who are prosecuted under them. Courts
place limits on prosecutorial discretion for the same reasons. In
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886), the United States Supreme
Court said:
When we consider the nature and the theory
of our institutions of government, the
principles upon which they are supposed to
rest, and review the history of their
development, we are constrained to conclude
that they do not mean to leave room for the
play and action of purely personal and
arbitrary power.
Id. at 369-70.
Closely akin to the doctrine of "vagueness" stands the
far less easily applied doctrine of "desuetude." Desuetude, like
vagueness, is based on the concept of fairness embodied in the due
process and equal protection clauses. Thus, a law prohibiting
vagrancy is unfair because it is both broad and vague (see
Papachristou, supra); similarly, a law prohibiting some act that
has not given rise to a real prosecution in 20 years is unfair to
the one person selectively prosecuted under it.
Although seldom used, desuetude is a widely accepted
legal concept. As Professor Bork has said:
There is a problem with laws like these.
They are kept in the code books as precatory
statements, affirmations of moral principle.
It is quite arguable that this is an improper
use of law, most particularly of criminal law,
that statutes should not be on the books if no
one intends to enforce them. It has been
suggested that if anyone tried to enforce a
law that had moldered in disuse for many
years, the statute should be declared void by
reason of desuetude or that the defendant
should go free because the law had not
provided fair warning.
R. Bork, The Tempting of America, 96 (New York: The Free Press
1990).See footnote 2
Desuetude is not, however, a concept nearly as new as
Professor Bork's book. As we said in Pryor v. Gainer, 177 W.Va.
218, ___, 351 S.E.2d 404, 411 (1986):
[T]he problem of a statute that produces
such absurd results that it has long been
ignored is a recurring one. Thus, our problem
today can be solved by the ancient authority
of the Roman law. For although English common
law is a creature of the English genius,
English equity is firmly grounded in Roman
law. The applicable, well established
principle can be found in Book One of The
Digest of Justinian, "De Legibus Senatusque
Consultis Et Longa Constuetudine" 32, where
the digest propounds the following:
Inueterata consuetudo pro lege non
immerito custoditur, et hoc est ius
quod dicitur moribus constitutum.
nam cum ipsae leges nulla alia ex
causa nos teneant, quam quod iudicio
populi receptae sunt, merito et ea,
quae sine ullo scripto populus
probauit, tenebunt omnes: nam quid
interest suffragio populus
uoluntatem suam declaret an rebus
ipsis et factis? quare rectissime
etiam illud receptum est, ut leges
non solum suffragio legis latoris,
sed etiam tacito consensu omnium per
desuetudinem abrogentur.See footnote 3
See also W. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act II, scene II
(1623) ("The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.")
The United States Supreme Court has also recognized the
concept of desuetude. In Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497 (1961), the
Supreme Court considered the Connecticut statute proscribing the
use of contraceptives (later found unconstitutional in Griswold v.
Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)). In Poe, the Court did not reach
the constitutional question because the statute had not been
enforced in years. Writing for the Court, Justice Frankfurter
said:
The Connecticut law prohibiting the use of
contraceptives has been on the State's books
since 1879. Conn. Acts 1879, c. 78. During
the more than three-quarters of a century
since its enactment, a prosecution for its
violation seems never to have been initiated,
save in State v. Nelson, 126 Conn. 412, 11 A.2d 856. The circumstances of that case,
decided in 1940, only prove the abstract
character of what is before us. There, a test
case was brought to determine the
constitutionality of the Act as applied
against two doctors and a nurse who had
allegedly disseminated contraceptive
information. After the Supreme Court of Error
sustained the legislation on appeal from a
demurrer to the information, the State moved
to dismiss the information. Neither counsel
nor our own researches have discovered any
other attempt to enforce the prohibition of
distribution or use of contraceptive devices
by criminal process. The unreality of these
law suits is illumined by another
circumstance. We were advised by counsel for
appellants that contraceptives are commonly
and notoriously sold in Connecticut drug
stores. Yet no prosecutions are recorded; and
certainly such ubiquitous, open, public sales
would more quickly invite the attention of
enforcement officials than the conduct in
which the present appellants wish to engage --
the giving of private medical advice by a
doctor to his individual patients, and their
private use of the devices prescribed. The
undeviating policy of nullification by
Connecticut of its anti-contraceptive laws
throughout all the long years that they have
been on the statute books bespeaks more than
prosecutorial paralysis. What was said in
another context is relevant here. "Deeply
embedded traditional ways of carrying out
state policy . . ." -- or not carrying it out
-- "are often tougher and truer law than the
dead words of the written text." Nashville,
C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Browning, 310 U.S. 362,
369.
Poe, supra at 501-02 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added).
VI.
Desuetude is not, however, a judicial repeal provision
that abrogates any criminal statute that has not been used in X
years. Ultimately, we must judge each statute individually to
determine if it is void due to desuetude. As the U. S. District
Court for the Southern District of New York said in United States
v. Elliott, 266 F. Supp. 318, 326 (1967):
We find little analytical aid in merely
applying, or refusing to apply, the rubric of
desuetude. The problem must be approached in
terms of that fundamental fairness owed to the
particular defendant that is the heart of due
process.
In other words, does a defendant have fair notice that he may be
prosecuted under a particular statute? To answer this question, we
must consider three factors.
The first factor is the distinction between crimes that
are malum in se and crimes that are malum prohibitum. Crimes that
are malum in se will not lose their criminal character through
desuetude, but crimes that are malum prohibitum may. For instance,
if no one had been prosecuted under an obscure statute prohibiting
ax murders since Lizzie Borden was acquitted, we would still allow
prosecution under that statute today. Even though no one has been
prosecuted for an ax murder in 50 years, we all still understand
that it is inappropriate to resort to garden tools to settle family
quarrels. On the other hand, we might think it quite reasonable to
approach the man who has embezzled the money that we have set aside
for our children's education and offer not to prosecute him if he
will return the money to us.
Second, there must be an open, notorious, and pervasive
violation of the statute for a long period before desuetude will
take hold. As Friedrich Carl von Savigny, the founder of the
Historical School of Jurisprudence, described the basic foundations
necessary for customary law to develop:
1. There must be a plurality of acts. . . .
2. Uniform, uninterrupted acts; that is to say the custom is interrupted when among these acts others resting upon an opposite rule have
come forth. This determination is beyond all
doubt.
3. The acts must recur throughout a long
period. . . .
F. Savigny, System of the Modern Roman Law, Vol. I, 138 (William
Holloway, trans., Madras, India: J. Higginbotham, 1867).
The final criterion that we may take from modern law is
that there must be a conspicuous policy of nonenforcement, or as
the U. S. Supreme Court described it in Poe, "[an] undeviating
policy of nullification . . . throughout all the long years that .
. . bespeaks more than prosecutorial paralysis." Poe, supra at
501. These criteria allow only those statutes whose enforcement
would violate due process to die a desuetudinal death.
Furthermore, the Legislature may revitalize any statute simply by
repassing it.
VII.
Examining the three criteria for desuetude set forth above, W. Va. Code, 61-5-19 [1923], to the extent that it prohibits a victim or his agent from seeking restitution in lieu of a criminal prosecution, clearly fails due to desuetude. The crime is obviously malum prohibitum since it utterly defies both human nature and good sense.See footnote 4 We need look only to Professors Hazard and
Hode's discussion of compounding as an accepted and acceptable
legal strategy to find vindication for this proposition as well as
the second criterion, namely open, notorious and pervasive
violation of the statute. See Hazard and Hodes, supra at §
4.4:103. The last reported case of a prosecution under W. Va.
Code, 61-5-19 [1923], was Aikman, supra, in 1938. Finally, we have
found no reported case of a successful prosecution for compounding
a felony or misprision of felony anywhere in the United States in
the past 20 years.See footnote 5
The Court of Appeals of Maryland considered the history of misprision as well as the decisions of other states in Pope v. State, 284 Md. App. 309, 396 A.2d 1054 (1979). The Maryland court noted that although misprision was an ancient common law offense in England, it fell into disuse for a period of over 400 years until it was resurrected in H. L. Sykes v. Director of Public Prosecution, [1961] 3 All. E. R. 33. Shortly after Sykes, however,
misprision was replaced by a new crime of "withholding information"
which did not punish an agreement not to prosecute in exchange for
restitution. Id. at 1070. The Court of Appeals of Maryland, after
exhaustive research, came to the conclusion that no one has been
punished under a misprision or compounding statute for agreeing not
to prosecute in exchange for restitution in modern times. As the
court noted:
'[I]n the modern acceptation of the term,
misprision of felony is almost if not exactly
the same as that of an accessory after the
fact' (p. 680). The utility of such an
offence has not, however, been demonstrated:
'. . . perhaps not a single case can be cited
in which punishment for such connection with a
felony has been inflicted in the U.S.'
Id. at 1071 (quoting Glazebrook, "How Long, Then, is the Arm of the
Law To Be?, 25 Mod. L. Rev., 301, 307, n. 51 (1962)).
Accordingly, we find W. Va. Code, 61-5-19 [1923], to the
extent that it prohibits a victim or his agent from seeking
restitution in lieu of a criminal prosecution, void under the
doctrine of desuetude. Seeking payment beyond restitution in
exchange for foregoing a criminal prosecution or seeking any
payments in exchange for not testifying at a criminal trial,
however, are still clearly prohibited.
VIII.
Because DR 7-105(A) has proven to be unworkable and because Mr. Printz did not have fair notice that he might be
subject to prosecution under W. Va. Code, 61-5-19 (1923)See footnote 6, we find
that he did not act inappropriately. Accordingly, we dismiss the
charges against Mr. Printz.
Charges Dismissed.
Footnote: 1D.R. 7-105(A) of the Code of Professional Responsibility
(1978) states:
A lawyer shall not present, participate in presenting, or threaten to present criminal charges solely to obtain an advantage in a civil matter. Footnote: 2See also G. Calabresi, A Common Law in the Age of Statutes (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1982); A. Bonfield, "The Abrogation of Penal Statutes by Nonenforcement," 49 Iowa
L.Rev. 389 (1963); Cf. L. and W. Rodgers, "Desuetude as a Defense,"
52 Iowa L.Rev. 1 (1966).
Footnote: 3This legal proposition translates as follows:
Age-encrusted custom is not undeservedly cherished as having almost statutory force, and this is the kind of law which is said to be established by use and wont. For given that statutes themselves are binding upon us for no other reason than that they have been accepted by the judgment of the populace, certainly it is fitting that what the populace has approved without any writing shall be binding upon everyone. What does it matter whether the people declares its will by voting or by the very
substance of its actions? Accordingly, it is absolutely right to accept the point that statutes may be repealed not only by vote of the legislature but also by the silent agreement of everyone expressed through desuetude. Footnote: 4This does not mean that all compounding is only malum prohibitum or that compounding is no longer a prosecutable offense
in West Virginia. Compounding that amounts to extortion is still prohibited by W. Va. Code, 61-2-13 [1923]. Extortion is clearly malum in se. Receiving repayment of money taken from a victim is not extortion; however, asking a higher price (i.e., "Give me my money back and $20,000 or I'll call the cops!") in return for the victim's silence is extortion. Footnote: 5One court did discipline a lawyer and suggested that he might be liable for misprision, but a careful review of the facts shows that he did not arrange for his client to receive a return of his stolen property, but instead arranged for his client to receive a payment in exchange for dropping criminal charges. See In the Matter of Friedland, 59 N.J. 209, 280 A.2d 183 (1971). See also Dunaway v. State, 561 P.2d 103 (Okl. Cr. 1977) (stating in dicta that threatening to prosecute under a bad check statute could sometimes be a violation of the Oklahoma compounding statute). Footnote: 6Mr. Printz is a lawyer who surely would not have left so blatant a paper trail if he believed he was doing anything wrong. More importantly, a reasonable person in Mr. Printz's shoes, would not have believed that he was opening himself up to prosecution.
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