Danford v. Superior Court

NOURSE, J.

Petitioner seeks a writ of prohibition to restrain the superior court from entertaining proceedings instituted. against petitioner charging him with contempt of court. The affidavit upon which the contempt proceedings are based alleges that on March 1, 1909, petitioner, who theretofore had been an attorney licensed to practice law, was disbarred from practice in all courts of the state by an order of the superior court in Los Angeles County in accord with proceedings duly instituted for that purpose. About three and a half years thereafter the judge who had made the order of disbarment, acting upon his own motion, ordered the petitioner reinstated to the practice of the law in the superior court and recommended full reinstatement to practice in all courts of the state by the district court of appeal. In accord with this order, petitioner took the oath to support the constitution of the United States and of this state, and to faithfully discharge the duties of attorney and counselor at law. On March 24, 1913, another judge sitting in the superior court in Los Angeles County set aside the order of reinstatement on motion of an attorney representing the Bar Association of Los Angeles County, upon the grounds, as recited in the later order, “that said order was made without notice to the .accuser in said disbarment proceedings or any of the attorneys who prosecuted said proceedings, that said order was inadvertently and improvidently made; that at the time of the making of said order said Danford had been convicted in said superior court of a felony and had been sentenced to a term in the penitentiary of three years, and which sentence at the time of making said order had not expired, and that said court had no jurisdiction or power to reinstate or admit said Danford as an attorney at law to said superior or any other court in the state of California.”

The affidavit then alleges that “ at the present time, and for a considerable period of time . . . said Wm. J. Dan-ford has advertised and held himself out as practicing and entitled to practice law in the courts of this state”; that he maintains an office for that purpose in the city and county of San Francisco; that, on September 5, 1919, he filed an appearance in a certain action then pending in

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the superior court in San Francisco; that, thereafter, and until the fifth day of March, 1920, he frequently appeared in said superior court as attorney for the defendant in said action. The orders of the superior court in Los Angeles County which are made the basis of the claim that petitioner was not entitled to practice in the superior court in San Francisco are incorporated in the accusatory affidavit.