In re Raggio

In re Raggio

Opinion

 [*369]   [**499]  The Board of Governors of the State Bar of Nevada has recommended that this court reprimand William J. Raggio for public statements made by him as the District Attorney of Washoe County, Nevada, concerning the opinion of this court in the celebrated case of Bean v. State, 86 Nev. 80, 465 P.2d 133 (1970). That opinion, for the second time, sustained a jury verdict finding Bean guilty of first degree murder. When the Bean case was first before this Court, Bean v. State, 81 Nev. 25, 398 P.2d 251 (1965), we affirmed not only his conviction, but the penalty of death which the jury had decreed. Upon the second appeal, the death penalty thus imposed was set aside and the case remanded for another hearing limited to the issue of penalty alone. This difference in the result of the two appeals was believed by a majority of this court to be compelled by an intervening decision of the United States Supreme Court in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 (1968), since the doctrine of that case was directed to be applied to death penalty [***2]  convictions previously entered.

 [*370]  ] The obligation of this court to follow and apply controlling decisions of the United States Supreme Court is written in our Nevada Constitution Article 1, Section 2, and that obligation must be discharged fearlessly and without regard to consequences. ¹ Indeed, every citizen, including the District Attorney, is similarly bound. Were it otherwise, ours would be a government of men rather than a government of law. The controlling authority of law must be recognized if we are to endure as a nation. The courts are the symbolic representatives of law and must be allowed to do their duty.

Every licensed attorney knows that he belongs to a profession with inherited standards of propriety and honor which experience has shown necessary in [***3]  a calling dedicated to the accomplishment of justice. He who would follow that calling must conform to those standards. The responsibility for the ultimate enforcement of those standards reposes in the courts since the government of the legal profession  [**500]  is a judicial function. Among other matters, these standards of propriety and honor ] require the lawyer to protect the rights of litigants in pending cases (SCR 199) and to uphold the respect due courts of justice (SCR 73, 204). Aside from this, simple regard for efficient and economical operation of our judicial system demands that all counsel refrain from needlessly creating possible impediments to obtaining a fair trial, with resulting litigation that delays rather than furthers the purpose of our courts. For this reason among others, Supreme Court Rule 199 prohibits all counsel, not just prosecutors, from causing the publication "of any material concerning a case on trial or any pending or anticipated litigation, calculated or which might reasonably be expected to interfere in any manner or to any degree with a fair trial in the courts or otherwise prejudice the due administration of justice."

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