Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 11:05:24 AM
It has always been my intention to examine Colorado's Commission on Judicial Discipline at the same level of detail that I have looked at Attorney Regulation. Doing so is a bit more difficult because of the 40 year old secrecy provisions in the state constitution. In October, I wrote three essays examining this constitutional provision, and promised a fourth. This is the fourth.
The secrecy provisions in the Constitution are designed to protect judges from public criticism. However, the secrecy goes only one way. While citizens who make complaints against judges are unable to tell anyone but their lawyer about the complaint, judges whose performance draws complaints are free to tell anyone. They can even get the complaint, itself, released so that they can sue the citizen making the complaint for defamation.
Let's examine how this one way mirror works in practice by going back to Carol Chambers, the DA who was subject to the show trial just before the election. The Rocky Mountain News reported that "In December 2005, Chambers accused an Arapahoe County judge of retaliating against her office for complaints it filed against some judges.
My regular, and very knowledgable correspondent on the Chambers' issues, BW, made the observation that: I know for a fact that many judges seem to be siding against Mrs. Chambers which raises a red flag indeed since it would seem they should, like anyone else, wait to hear ALL the facts prior to making a judgement.
The problem with this one way secrecy is that it allows judges to retaliate (or encourage other judges to retaliate) for complaints without any possibility that the public can ever know that there is a motive for retaliation. If the retaliating judge is sufficiently careful, he can make the retaliation seem like routine judicial actions. That is why there is a climate of legal fear abroad.
If anyone cares to defend the secrecy provisions in the Colorado Constitution as "protecting the public," I would like to hear the argument. I don't believe one can be made.