Myers v. State Bar

WASTE, C. J. It is recommended to this court by the respondent State Bar that petitioner, an attorney-at-law, be suspended from practice for a period of three months because of the alleged violation of his oath and duties as an attorney. Specifically, it is found that petitioner withheld certain facts material to his employment by and services for a client and that he attempted to collect an unconscionable fee for such services. This proceeding was instituted by petitioner to review the action so taken against him.

It appears that in November, 1933, one Eugenio Vasquez entered a plea of guilty to a charge of violating the State Narcotic Act. Under the judgment of the court, Vasquez was given the alternative of serving three years in the county jail or serving said three years on probation in the Republic of Mexico, of which country he was a native. The sentence, including the terms of probation, was announced in open court in the presence of Vasquez, his then counsel (a deputj^ public defender of Los Angeles County), and an interpreter. After Vasquez had served approximately six months of the sentence in the county jail, his wife called at petitioner’s office to enlist his aid in procuring the release of her husband. Petitioner thereupon visited Vasquez in the county jail with a view to going over the matter with him. Following two or three interviews with Vasquez and a checking of the criminal record, petitioner moved the trial court for a modification of the probation terms so as to permit Vasquez to serve the probationary period in Los Angeles County or at a road camp. Upon the denial of such motion, petitioner, in accordance with the provisions of the court’s order entered against Vasquez, [530]procured the latter’s release upon his promise to return to Mexico. Petitioner thereupon advanced Yasquez approximately six dollars to defray his transportation costs and personally saw to it that he departed "in compliance with the terms of his probation.

Tlie ease against petitioner is founded, principally, upon the testimony of Yasquez, taken by deposition, to the effect that in his early interviews with petitioner the latter did not inform him that in order to procure his release from the county jail it was merely necessary that he agree to go to Mexico, but that, instead, petitioner, without mentioning this fact, undertook to procure his release for an agreed fee of fifty dollars.