ground of an application to strike his name from the roll until he has been regularly convicted by a jury in a criminal proceeding; or, at least, that this is true, when the act charged was not committed in his professional character.

As, in urging this argument, much stress is laid upon the fact that the petitioner, by his answer, denied the charge contained in the rule to show cause, it is proper to notice the manner in which this denial was made. The charge, as we have seen, was specific and particular: "That J. B. Wall, an attorney of this court, did, on the sixth day of this present month, engage in and with an unlawful, tumultuous, and riotous gathering, he advising and encouraging thereto, take from the jail of Hillsborough County and hang by the neck until he was dead, one John, otherwise unknown, thereby showing an utter disregard and contempt for the law and its provisions," &c. The denial of this charge was a mere negative pregnant, amounting only to a denial of the attending circumstances and legal consequences ascribed to the act. The respondent denied "counselling, advising, encouraging, or assisting an unlawful, tumultuous, and riotous gathering or mob in taking one John from the jail of Hillsborough County and causing his death by hanging, in contempt and defiance of the law." He was not required to answer under oath, and did not do so. Yet, free from this restriction, he did not come out fully and fairly and deny that he was engaged in the transaction at all; but only that he did not engage in it with the attendant circumstances and legal consequences set out in the charge. Even the name. of the victim is made a material part of the traverse.

Upon such a special plea as this, we think the court was justified in regarding the denial as unsatisfactory. It was really equivalent to an admission of the substantial matter of the charge.

Nevertheless, the marshal of the court was called as a witness, and clearly proved the truth of the charge; and no evidence was offered in rebuttal. The case, as it stood before the court, was as clear of all doubt as if the petitioner had expressly admitted his participation in the transaction.

It is necessary, however, that we should examine the authorities on the question raised by the petitioner, as to the

power of the court to proceed against him without a previous conviction upon an indictment.

It has undoubtedly been held in some of the cases that where the offence is indictable, and the facts are not admitted, a regular conviction must be had before the court will exercise its summary jurisdiction to strike the name of the party off the roll. At first view this was supposed to be the purport of Lord Denman's judgment in the anonymous case reported in 5 Barn, & Adol. 1088. That was a case of professional misconduct in pecuniary transactions. Lord Denman is reported as saying: "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." And the Solicitor-General, Sir John Campbell, who made the application in that case, being requested to look at the authorities, afterwards stated that he could find no precedent for it. In that case, however, the rule applied for was one requiring the attorney to answer charges on oath. On a similar application in a subsequent case charging perjury and fraud, In re 3 Nev. & Perry, 389, Lord Denman said: "Would not an indictment for perjury lic upon these facts? We are not in the habit of interfering in such a case, unless there is something amounting to an admission on the part of the attorney, which would render the intervention of a jury unnecessary."

In another case in the Exchequer, Ex parte

2 Dowl. P. C. 110, where an attorney had been sued in an action at law for an aggravated libel, and a verdict had been rendered against him with only one shilling damages; on an application being then made to strike him off the roll, Lord Lyndhurst said: "Have you any instance of such an application on a verdict for the same criminal act, but for which no criminal proceedings have been taken?" and intimated that if there was any such case, the rule would be granted, but added: "Here there was

conflicting evidence at the trial, and it is doubtful whether the publication was brought home to the defendant; and the jury seemed to have so considered it: " and the rule was refused.

But this matter was carefully reviewed by the Court of Exchequer in the subsequent case of Stephens v. Hill, 10 Mee. & W. 28, where motion was made against an attorney who had conspired with others to induce a witness for the opposite party to absent himself from a trial, giving him money, &c. It was objected that the application to strike from the roll could not be heard on these charges without a conviction, inasmuch as a conspiracy is an indictable offence. Lord Abinger took a distinction between a rule to show cause why an attorney should not be struck off the roll, and a rule calling on him to answer the matters of an affidavit with a view to strike him off the roll. The latter course he conceded would be improper, if the offence was indictable, because it would compel the attorney to criminate himself; but not so the former, for he might clear himself without answering under oath; and that this was all that Lord Denman meant in the case before him. Lord Abinger said that as long as he had known Westminster Hall, he had never heard of such a rule as that an attorney might not be struck off the roll for misconduct in a cause merely because the offence imputed to him was of such a nature that he might have been indicted for it; but he said that in the case of ap plications calling upon an attorney to answer the matters of an affidavit, he had known Lord Kenyon and Lord Ellenborough frequently say, You cannot have a rule for this purpose, because the misconduct you impute to the man is indictable;

but you may have one to strike him off the roll. After notic

ing and explaining the language attributed to Lord Denman, as before stated, Lord Abinger adds: "If, indeed, a case should occur where an attorney has been guilty of some professional misconduct for which the court by its summary jurisdiction might compel him to do justice, and at the same time has been guilty of something indictable in itself, but not arising out of the cause, the court will not inquire into that with a view of striking him off the roll, but would leave the party aggrieved to his remedy by a criminal prosecution."

This expression, about leaving the party aggrieved to his

remedy by a criminal prosecution, is frequently found in the English cases, and has reference to the practice in that country of regarding the party injured by the perpetration of a crime as the proper person to prosecute the offender; and one, indeed, upon whom a duty, in some sort, rested to institute such prosecution. The court would, therefore, hesitate to take any summary action against the offender which might remove the inducements the injured party would otherwise have for proceeding criminally against him, and thus interfere with the course of justice. In this country, the prosecution of criminal offences is generally committed to the charge of a public officer, and sufficient emolument is attached to the duty of prosecution to secure its faithful performance. The same reason, therefore, does not exist here, as in England, for leaving it to the injured party to prosecute for the criminal offence. So far as the offender himself is concerned, it is true, the reason is equally strong against compelling him to answer under oath charges preferred against him, and in favor of giving him a trial by jury in all cases of doubt or of conflicting evidence. That a reluctance to interfere with the incentive to prosecute criminally in these cases operated strongly upon the judicial mind in England, is manifest from the fact, that after a prosecution had been made, and the duty of the injured party had been performed, the courts never hesitated to strike the accused from the roll, if found guilty by a jury, even though judgment against him had been arrested, or reversed, or the offence had been pardoned or condoned, Rex v. Southerton, 6 East, 126; In the Matter of King, 8 Q. B. 129; In re Garbett, 18 C. B. 403; thus showing that it is not a technical conviction which is required, but a fair effort on the part of the prosecutor to bring the offender to justice; coupled also with the fact that a jury is the most suitable tribunal for passing upon a question of fact depending upon conflicting evidence.

1

Some expressions in the cases cited, including the remarks made by Lord Abinger in Stephens v. Hill, seem to imply that the summary jurisdiction will not be exercised where the charges made against an attorney affect only his general character as such, and do not amount to malpractice in a particular

cause.

But subsequent decisions are to the effect that it is

properly extended to cases affecting his general character also. Thus, in Re Blake, 3 El. & El. 34, an attorney was struck from the roll for having improperly collected the money due on a mortgage which he had pledged as collateral security for a loan, and which he borrowed from the pledgee on some false pretence. On a rule to show cause and reference to the master, the facts were found to be truly charged; and although he was not acting as attorney in the matter, the court suspended his certificate for two years, on the general ground, as stated by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, that where an attorney is shown to have been guilty of gross fraud, although not such as to render him liable to an indictment, nor committed by him while the relation of attorney and client was subsisting between him and the person defrauded, or in his character as an attorney, the court will not allow suitors to be exposed to gross fraud and dishonesty at the hands of one of its officers. And in a subsequent case, Re Hill, Law Rep. 3 Q. B. 543, where an attorney acting, not as such, but as clerk to a firm of attorneys, appropriated to his own use money which came to his hands on the sale of an estate; on a motion to strike his name from the roll, it was objected that, as his offence was indictable, a conviction was necessary before this proceeding could be had. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn said: "No case has, so far as I am aware, come before the court under the precise circumstances under which this case presents itself, namely, of an act of delinquency committed by an attorney's clerk, who at the same time is an attorney, though at that time not act ing as such; but still I think, on every principle of justice, we ought not the less to entertain the application. . . . If the delinquent had been proceeded against criminally upon the facts admitted by him, it is plain that he would have been convicted of embezzlement; and, upon that conviction being brought before us, we should have been bound to act. If there had been a conflict of evidence upon the affidavits, that might be a very sufficient reason why the court should not interfere until the conviction had taken place; but here we have the person against whom the application is made admitting the facts." Mr. Justice Blackburn, in the same case, said: "I think when we are called upon, in the exercise of our equitable