By Chris Powell
Can respect for Connecticut’s judiciary be maintained only by imposing nearly complete secrecy on complaints of misconduct by judges?
That is the presumption of state law, as Connecticut’s Hearst newspapers reminded readers this week with investigative reporter Bill Cummings’ comprehensive review of the Judicial Review Council, the agency in charge of disciplining judges.
While the council provides data about its work, it seldom identifies the judges, workers compensation commissioners, and family magistrates complained against. The Hearst report found that 98.5% of the nearly 2,000 complaints made in the last 17 years had been dismissed without any public acknowledgment or explanation.
Only 12 complaints were disclosed, occurring when the council decided there was probable cause to hold a hearing. Only nine of those complaints went to a hearing, whereupon six judges were punished with suspension and three were censured. Eight were reprimanded secretly.
The seemingly low rate of judicial discipline does not necessarily indicate the council’s lack of conscientiousness. Most complaints are said to be and almost certainly are frivolous, filed by litigants enraged simply because a judge didn’t see a case their way. That’s not prejudice or corruption.
Judges and many lawyers fear that disclosing all complaints against judges and everything about their handling, making the information available to news organizations, will harm judicial reputations unfairly.
But secrecy already breeds suspicion. It prevents anyone outside the Judicial Review Council from knowing that a complaint was properly handled. Secrecy also presumes that news organizations and citizens — people the courts trust to serve on juries — are too stupid to distinguish frivolous complaints from serious ones. Thus secrecy exempts courts, judges, and lawyers from ever having to account for the law and legal proceedings.
Besides, the very structure of the council raises suspicion. As with most of professional discipline in Connecticut, the law establishing the council puts those being regulated in charge of their own regulation.
That is, three of the council’s 12 members are judges and another three are lawyers, who make their living seeking favorable rulings from judges. The council’s remaining six members are “public” members. Neither those “public” members nor the public itself are ever likely to perceive any favor trading or back-scratching among their judge and lawyer colleagues on the council, though letting judges and lawyers dominate the council facilitates conflict of interest.
Defenders of the council’s composition may argue that the council needs guidance by legal professionals and that the council’s lay members can’t understand the law and the judicial code of ethics on their own. But if a council dominated by “public” members needed legal advice, the council could hire it or get it from the state attorney general’s office as other state agencies do.
Conflict of interest with judicial regulation is not peculiar to the Judicial Review Council. The General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee is itself full of lawyers who inevitably gain influence in their private practice by virtue of their membership on the committee. Such lawyers have power over judges.
The House chairman of the committee, state Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, supports secrecy for the Judicial Review Council, defending it partly because, he says, while the council’s reprimands and admonishments of judges are not public, the committee is told about them and they may be cited in committee hearings on judicial reappointments.
“So,” Stafstrom says, “the information does get out there when it counts the most.”
Not really. For when the Judiciary Committee starts discussing judicial renominations, hearings on the nominees are over and it is too late for the public’s participation. The public should have full and timely access to all information the committee may use to make its decisions.
Most judges in Connecticut do a difficult job well. Compelled by the evidence and due process to make decisions likely to be unpopular, judges are sometimes heroic. But since they are paid more than $200,000 per year they can afford a little more accountability, just as the public can use the education that would result.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 