Lawmakers want accountability from Judicial Review Council

Journal Inquirer - April 8, 2006

Four state legislators with supervisory power over the reappointment of judges say they believe the agency responsible for investigating misconduct by judges needs to be less secret and more accountable to the public.

"The Judicial Review Council is a watchdog agency, but in my opinion a watchdog agency is only as good as the way they report and disclose their actions and decisions," said state Sen. Andrew J. McDonald, deputy majority leader and co-chair of the Judiciary Committee. "It seems to me, like any administrative body, they have a responsibility not only to the people who appear before them, but to the public."

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal agreed in saying potential change is in the hands of the General Assembly. "There should be greater transparency and disclosure with protection for the rights of everyone involved, but it has to be achieved through the legislature. The detection and punishment of judicial misconduct is a paramount public interest."

If anyone wants changes to the way the council operates, says Donald Browne, the agency's executive director, he or she should write a letter to the council making those suggestions.

McDonald, a Stamford Democrat, and his committee co-chairman, Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, along with both vice chairs, Sen. Mary Ann Handley, D-Manchester, and Rep. James F. Spallone, D-Essex, say further legislative inquiry is necessary to determine what changes are needed to the Judicial Review Council. That 12-member review council of judges, lawyers, and public members is responsible to investigate and punish misconduct by judges and magistrates. There are about 300 Superior Court judges, judge trial referees, and family court magistrates.

McDonald and Lawlor were the inspiration behind efforts to establish a recent law that requires the secretive council to give the legislature some of the information in judges' complaint files so the data can be reviewed before they're reappointed.

But Lawlor says the Judiciary Committee still doesn't get all the information it needs on judge's backgrounds and complaints from the council. For instance, he says, the Judiciary Committee wanted to find out which judges might be late in filing court rulings on a regular basis, but the council wouldn't cooperate.

Many state agencies and organizations, including juvenile and family agencies hospitals and prisons, allow legislators access to confidential data so they can evaluate their operations, but the council does not, Lawlor says.

Most all of the council's operations are secret, including its initial hearings to determine probable cause of judicial misconduct, much of its punishment, and most of its rulings. Only its annual statistics of its operations are made public, and its presence on the judicial branch Internet site is difficult for a consumer to find.

An examination of council statistics shows the agency has given the state's judges and magistrates close to a clean slate over the past six years, punishing only two judges through the use of the least serious penalty available - private admonishments.

In that six years, the agency disposed of more than 500 complaints and held just four secret hearings to determine whether probable cause existed to further pursue allegations of judicial misconduct.

During that same time frame, the Council on Probate Judicial Conduct meted out 11 private admonishments to probate judges, out of 95 complaints. More than 60 of those complaints resulted in secret probable cause hearings. No probate or superior court judge ever has been removed in the history of the state and very few have received more substantial punishment than a confidential admonishment.

But nationwide, judges do get regularly removed from the bench, suspended, or otherwise punished. In the past six years, 74 judges have been removed, 62 resigned after inquiries, one was suspended, five former judges were barred from ever serving again, and 563 have been publicly - not privately - sanctioned for misconduct, according to the American Judicature Society.

The legislature's Judiciary Committee members offered no specific ideas on what changes are needed. But a national organization, HALT, believes from its own inquiries nationwide that judicial disciplinary agencies have specific operational needs in order to be held accountable to the public. The 50,000-member Washington, D.C., association - founded in 1978 - claims to be the largest and oldest such legal redress group in the country.

Using standards for other judicial and lawyer disciplinary agencies, Suzanne Blonder, an associate council for HALT, suggested these changes:

• A council Internet Web site giving its telephone number, how it operates, all the statistical information in its annual report, and how people can complain about judges.

• A new law opening up all complaints against judges, all agency hearings on judicial misconduct, and all agency decisions for examination by the public.

• Better education for court clerks on where a complaining member of the public can find public reports on the financial holdings of judges.

This kind of openness, Blonder says, "allows us as a society to determine whether the system is serving the public efficiently." And, she says, it gives people more confidence that judges are handling their complaints properly.