ing the public peace; but for none of these things could the court interfere and summon the attorney to answer, and if his conduct should not be satisfactorily explained, proceed to disbar him. It is only for that moral delinquency which consists in a want of integrity and trustworthiness, and renders him an unsafe person to manage the legal business of others, that the courts can interfere and summon him before them. He is disbarred in such case for the protection both of the court and of the public.

A conviction of a felony or a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude implies the absence of qualities which fit one for an office of trust, where the rights and property of others are concerned. The record of conviction is conclusive evidence on this point. Such conviction, as already said, can follow only a regular trial upon the presentment or indictment of a grand jury. It cannot follow from any proceeding of the court on a motion to disbar, for the reason already given, that no one can be required to answer for such an offence except in one way. If a party indicted is, upon trial, acquitted, the court cannot proceed to retry him for the offence upon such a motion. He may answer, after acquittal, that he never committed the offence, and that no tribunal can take any legal proceeding against him on the assumption that he had been wrongfully acquitted. And what the court cannot do after acquittal it cannot do by such a proceeding before trial. If the court, after acquittal, can still proceed for the alleged offence, as a majority of my brethren declare it may, and call upon him to show that he is not guilty or be disbarred, there is a defect in our Constitution and laws which has, up to this day, remained undiscovered. Hitherto it has always been supposed that the record of acquittal of a public offence, after a trial by a jury, was conclusive evidence, at all times and in all places, of the party's innocence. This doctrine, until to-day, has been supposed to be immovably embedded in our jurisprudence.

There are many cases in the books where the view I have taken of the authority of the court over attorneys and counsellors-at-law is recognized and acted upon. In a case in the Supreme Court of New Jersey, 2 Hals. (N. J.) 162, reported without a name out of respect to the friends of the party im

plicated, an application was made on behalf of members of the bar for a rule that a certain attorney show cause why his name should not be stricken from the rolls, upon an allegation that he had been guilty of larceny. The moving party stated in his application that it was a matter of notoriety that the attorney had purloined books, to a considerable amount, from persons who were at the time in court and ready, when called upon, to substantiate the charge. The counsel, therefore, on behalf of members of the bar, called upon the court to relieve them from the reproach of having the man attached to their profession, and from the disgrace of being compelled, in their professional duties, to have intercourse with one with whom they would be ashamed to associate in private life; and that the court had undoubtedly the power to grant the rule, for, as it was essential to the admission of an attorney that he should be of good moral character, it must be equally essential that he should continue to be such. But the Chief Justice said: "The offence of which it is alleged this man has been guilty is neither a contempt of court nor does it fall within the denomination of malpractice. It would appear to me, therefore, that he must be first convicted of the crime by a jury of his countrymen before we can proceed against him for such an offence; for, suppose he should be brought to the bar and should say he was not guilty, we could not try the fact."

The case was then taken under advisement, and at a subsequent day the court said, speaking by the Chief Justice: "We have reflected upon this case, and do not see how we can do anything in it, because the court seems to be confined to cases of malpractice or to crimes which are in the nature of crimen falsi, and of which there has been a conviction." Justice Ford, of the court, added: "An attorney may be struck off the roll, first, for a breach of the rules of the court; second, for breach of any of his official duties; third, for all such crimes and misdemeanors as affect his moral character. But in this third class of cases we cannot proceed in the ordinary way; there ought always to be a previous conviction before this court can interfere. All the cases cited sanction this distinction, except the case from the District of Columbia, which is anomalous." The rule was, therefore, refused.

In Ex parte Steinman and Hensel, 95 Pa. St. 220, the parties, members of the bar of Lancaster County, in Pennsylvania, were editors of a newspaper published in the county. In one of its numbers an article appeared which charged that the judge of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the county had decided a case wrongfully from motives of political partisanship. The court thereupon sent for the parties, and on their appearance they admitted that they were editors of the paper and that as such they were responsible for the publication. The court then entered a rule upon them to show cause why they should not be disbarred and their names stricken from the roll of attorneys for misbehavior in their offices. To this rule they answered, setting up, among other things, that if the charge was that they had published a libellous article, it was that they had committed an indictable offence, not in the presence of the court, or while acting as its officers, and therefore could not be called upon to answer the rule until they should have been tried and convicted, according to law, for the offence; and that the court was not competent to determine in that form of proceeding that they did unlawfully and maliciously publish, out of court, a libel upon the court, and to hear and determine disputed questions of fact involving the motives of the parties and the official conduct of the court. The rule, however, was made absolute, and the names of the parties were ordered to be stricken from the roll of attorneys. They then took the case on writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State, where the judgment was reversed, and it was ordered that the parties be restored to the bar. Chief Justice Shars wood, in delivering the opinion of the court, said:

"No question can be made of the power of a court to strike a member of the bar from the roll for official misconduct in or out of court. By the seventy-third section of the act of April 14, 1834, it is expressly enacted that if any attorney-at-law shall misbehave himself in his office of attorney he shall be liable to suspension, removal from office, or to such other penalties as have heretofore been allowed in such cases by the laws of this Commonwealth.' We do not mean to say for the case does not call for such an opinion that there may not be cases of misconduct not strictly professional which would clearly

show a person not to be fit to be an attorney, nor fit to associate with honest men. Thus, if he was proved to be a thief, a forger, a perjurer or guilty of other offences of the crimen falsi. But no one, we suppose, will contend that for such an offence he can be summarily convicted and disbarred by the court without a formal indictment, trial, and conviction by a jury, or upon confession in open court. Whether a libel is an offence of such a character may be a question, but certain it is that if the libel in this case had been upon a private individual, or upon a public officer, such even as the district attorney, the court could not have summarily convicted the defendants and disbarred them." p. 237.

A similar doctrine obtains in the courts of England. Thus, in a case in 5 Barn. & Adol. 1088, the Solicitor-General of England moved the Court of King's Bench for a rule calling on two attorneys of the court to show cause why they should not be struck off the roll, on affidavits charging them with professional misconduct in certain pecuniary transactions. Lord Denman, the Chief Justice, replied: "The facts stated amount to an indictable offence. Is it not more satisfactory that the case should go to a trial? I have known applications of this kind, after conviction, upon charges involving professional misconduct; but we should be cautious of putting parties in a situation where, by answering, they might furnish a case against themselves, on an indictment to be afterwards preferred. On an application calling upon an attorney to answer the matters of an affidavit, it is not usual to grant the rule if an indictable offence is charged." The court, however, desired the SolicitorGeneral to see if any precedent could be found of such an application having been granted. The Solicitor-General afterwards stated that he had been unable to find any, and the rule was discharged. My brethren are mistaken in supposing that in this case the attorneys were required to answer under oath the charges made.

In re, 8 Nev. & P. 389, a motion was made to the Court of Queen's Bench to strike an attorney off the roll on an affidavit alleging a distinct case of perjury by him. The attorney had sworn to the sum of £874 as the expenses of witnesses, which was reduced before the master to £47. It was

contended that the court could exercise its summary jurisdiction on the ground of the perjury. But the Chief Justice replied: "Would not an indictment for perjury lie upon these facts? We are not in the habit of interposing in such a case, unless there is something amounting to an admission on the part of the attorney which would render the interposition of a jury unnecessary." The moving counsel answered that there was enough in the affidavit to show a distinct case of perjury, but that there was no admission. The rule was, therefore, refused.

To the same purport are numerous other adjudications, and their force is not weakened by the circumstance that it is also held that it is no objection to the exercise of the summary jurisdiction of the court that the conduct constituting the delinfor which disbarment is moved, may subject the party quency, to indictment. When such is the case he is not required to answer the affidavits charging the official delinquency, for no one can be compelled to criminate himself, and the court confines its inquiry strictly to such acts as are inconsistent with the attorney's duty in his profession. It looks only to the professional conduct of the attorney, and acts upon that.

In Stephens v. Hill, which was before the Court of Exchequer, a distinction was drawn between the misconduct of an attorney outside of a proceeding in court which might subject him to an indictment, and such misconduct committed by him in a proceeding in court. For the former no motion to disbar would be entertained; for the latter the motion would be heard. There an attorney for the defendants had persuaded a material witness for the plaintiff to absent himself from the trial of the cause, and had undertaken to indemnify him for any damage he might sustain for so doing. Upon affidavits disclosing this matter, application was made to disbar the attorney. It was objected that the court would not exercise its summary jurisdiction when the misconduct charged amounts to an indictable offence, as was the conspiracy in which the attorney was engaged. But the Chief Baron, Lord Abinger, answered that he never understood that an attorney might not be struck off the roll for misconduct in a cause in which he was an attorney merely because the offence imputed to him was of