Case Title: In the Matter of Crutchfield

Citation: 223 S.E.2d 822, 289 N.C. 597

Docket Number: 

State: north-carolina

Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Date: 1975-12-17T00:00:00Z

Document:
223 S.E.2d 822 (1975)
289 N.C. 597
In the Matter of Judge E. E. CRUTCHFIELD.
No. 97.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.
December 17, 1975.
*823 E. A. Hightower, Wadesboro, C. Frank Griffin, Monroe, Henry L. Kitchin, Rockingham, for Judge E. E. Crutchfield, respondent.
Millard R. Rich, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., for Judicial Standards Commission.
EXUM, Justice.
This matter is before the Court upon the Recommendation of the Judicial Standards Commission (Commission) filed with us on August 13, 1975, that Judge E. E. Crutchfield, a judge of the General Court of Justice, District Court Division, Twentieth Judicial District (Respondent), be censured for "conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that brings the judicial office into disrepute," as this phrase is used in Article IV, Section 17(2) of the North Carolina Constitution and N.C.Gen.Stat. 7A-376 (1974 Cum.Supp.). Having considered the record in the matter consisting of the verified complaint and answer filed with, the evidence heard by, and the findings of fact, conclusions, and Recommendation made by the Commission, and the briefs for Respondent and Commission filed with us (Respondent having elected not to argue the matter orally) we note the following procedure before and Findings of the Commission and we make the following Conclusions of Law and Order of Censure:
2. Respondent filed a verified answer admitting these allegations.
3. Upon due notice, Respondent was accorded a full adversary hearing before the Commission on April 3, 1975, at which time he was represented by counsel. At the hearing Respondent stipulated that the Commission could consider as evidence:
*824 During the hearing, Respondent also consented to the Commission's considering statements taken from attorneys Charles Brown and Fred Stokes, whose clients were the beneficiaries of the judgments in question, by an agent of the State Bureau of Investigation.
4. Upon considering this evidence the Commission found certain facts as follows:
5. The Commission's findings are supported by the evidence. They are indeed not contradicted by any evidence. We, consequently, affirm these findings.
6. In order to meet squarely Respondent's arguments urging us to reject the Commission's Recommendation we observe that the uncontradicted (except where noted) evidence before the Commission tends to show the following facts:
1. This proceeding is neither criminal nor civil in nature. It is an inquiry into the conduct of a judicial officer, the purpose of which is not primarily to punish any individual but to maintain due and proper administration of justice in our State's courts, public confidence in its judicial system, and the honor and integrity of its judges. In Re Diener, 268 Md. 659, 304 A.2d 587 (1973) cert. denied Broccolino v. Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities, 415 U.S. 989, 94 S. Ct. 1586, 39 L. Ed. 2d 885; In Re Kelly, 238 So. 2d 565 (Fla.1970) cert. denied 401 U.S. 962, 91 S. Ct. 970, 28 L. Ed. 2d 246; Memphis and Shelby County Bar Association v. Vick, 40 Tenn.App. 206, 290 S.W.2d 871 (1955) cert. denied 352 U.S. 975, 77 S. Ct. 372, 1 L. Ed. 2d 328.
2. A judgment is an act of the court, not counsel. Respondent may not escape responsibility for any judgments signed by him by delegating their preparation to counsel or anyone else. "The trial judge cannot be too careful to make certain that his judgments and orders are accurate and complete, regardless of who takes the primary responsibility of preparing them." The National Conference of State Trial Judges, The State Trial Judge's Book 197 (2d ed. 1969).
3. That Respondent received no personal benefit, financial or otherwise, *826 from signing these judgments does not preclude this conduct from being prejudicial to the administration of justice and that which brings the judicial office into disrepute. Whether a judge receives any personal benefit from his conduct has been held to be "wholly irrelevant" to the inquiry. In Re Diener, supra, 268 Md. at 670, 304 A.2d  at 594.
4. Whether the conduct of a judge may be characterized as prejudicial to the administration of justice which brings the judicial office into disrepute depends not so much upon the judge's motives but more on the conduct itself, the results thereof, and the impact such conduct might reasonably have upon knowledgeable observers. Geiler v. Commission on Judicial Qualifications, 10 Cal. 3d 270, 110 Cal. Rptr. 201, 515 P.2d 1 (1973) cert. denied 417 U.S. 932, 94 S. Ct. 2643, 41 L. Ed. 2d 235.
5. Respondent's conduct in signing these judgments in question without any semblance of an inquiry to determine either the factual or legal basis for them strikes at the very heart of the adjudicatory process. The gravamen of his offense is not so much that his judgments were contrary to law, beyond his jurisdiction to enter, or that some of the facts recited therein were indisputably false. The gravamen is that Respondent made no effort to ascertain whether his judgments were supported in law and in fact. "We have not the smallest doubt. . . that the disposition of cases for reasons other than an honest appraisal of the facts and the law, as disclosed by the evidence presented, will amount to conduct prejudicial to the proper administration of justice whenever and however it may be defined or whoever does the defining." In Re Diener, supra, 268 Md. at 671, 304 A.2d  at 594.
6. The result of Respondent's conduct was a gross abuse by him of those provisions of our Motor Vehicle Statutes relating to driving privileges for persons charged and not tried and charged and convicted of driving while under the influence of intoxicants, particularly N.C.Gen.Stats. 20-16.2(c) and 20-179(b).
7. Respondent's judgments under these circumstances in the eyes of any knowledgeable observer were bound to prejudice the administration of justice and to bring the judicial office into disrepute.
8. The failure of Respondent to make due inquiry into the facts and law upon which these judgments were based and his execution of them upon a mere ex parte application of counsel for defendants also violates Canon 3(A)(4) of the North Carolina Code of Judicial Conduct, 283 N.C. 771, 772, which provides that "[a] judge should accord to every person who is legally interested in a proceeding, or his lawyer, full right to be heard according to law, and, except as authorized by law, neither initiate nor consider ex parte or other communications concerning a pending or impending proceeding." Codes of judicial conduct may "usefully be consulted to give meaning to the constitutional standards." Spruance v. Commission on Judicial Qualifications, 13 Cal. 3d 778, 796, 119 Cal. Rptr. 841, 853, 532 P.2d 1209, 1221 (1975); accord, Geiler v. Commission on Judicial Qualifications, supra.
9. We conclude, finally, that Respondent's execution of each "Judgment Allowing Limited Driving Privilege" upon a mere ex parte request without making any effort or conducting any inquiry to ascertain whether the facts recited in the judgments were true and whether he was lawfully entitled to enter the judgments and without giving the State an opportunity to be heard when in truth the judgments were supported neither in fact nor in law and were beyond Respondent's jurisdiction to enter constituted a gross abuse by Respondent of important provisions of our Motor Vehicle Statutes and amounted to "conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that brings the judicial office into disrepute" as this phrase is used in Article IV, Section 17(2) of the North Carolina Constitution and N.C.Gen.Stat. 7A-376 *827 (1974 Cum.Supp.), and for this conduct Respondent ought to be censured in accordance with the Recommendation of the Judicial Standards Commission.
Now, therefore, it is ORDERED that Judge E. E. Crutchfield, Respondent herein, be and he is hereby censured by this Court.
Done by the Court in Conference, this 17 day of December, 1975.
LAKE, Justice (dissenting):
My dissent does not reflect any doubt on my part that certain acts of the respondent, purportedly in the performance of his judicial duties, as shown in the evidence in the record before us, were reprehensible, prejudicial to the administration of justice and of such nature as to bring the judicial office into disrepute and thus merit the censure of this Court and of all right minded citizens. The basis of my dissent is the much more fundamental principles of law, declared in the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution of this State and of the United States.
Since this is the first proceeding to reach this Court under GS Ch. 7A, Art. 30, by which the Judicial Standards Commission was created and without which it has no authority, and since such a proceeding is of significant interest to the public, the bench and the bar, I believe the constitutional deficiencies of the statute should be dealt with by this Court even though not specifically raised by the respondent. The attention of the General Assembly being so directed to these deficiencies, it can, it if deems proper, enact at its forthcoming session a new and valid statute to carry out the mandate laid upon it by Art. IV, § 17, of the Constitution of North Carolina, ratified at the general election of 1972.
For the present I pass over the interesting question of whether the General Assembly may lawfully enact legislation creating and empowering such a Commission, at a time when the Constitution does not authorize it, by making the effectiveness of its enactment contingent upon the ratification of a then pending constitutional amendment. See, Session Laws of 1971, Ch. 590.
Article I, § 19, of the Constitution of North Carolina declares:
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States declares:
It is my view that the statute by which that Commission was created, and which is its sole source of power or authority, violates these basic principles. For that reason, this Court cannot, and does not, derive therefrom authority to enter the present order.
It will be observed that this Court does not purport to enter this order as an exercise of its general supervisory power over proceedings of the other courts of this State, including that over which Judge Crutchfield was elected by the people of his district to preside. See: Constitution of North Carolina, Art. IV, § 12(1); Dantzic v. State, 279 N.C. 212, 219, 182 S.E.2d 563. Consequently, this dissenting opinion does not relate to an order of censure entered in the exercise of that power. Obviously, it does not relate to a judgment entered by the Senate, sitting as the Court for the Trial of Impeachments. See, Constitution of North Carolina, Art. IV, § 4.
In the present proceeding, no court has heard any evidence or made any finding of fact. This Court has simply reviewed the record transmitted to it by an administrative agency, has concluded the evidence in the record supports findings made by that agency and has acted in accordance with its recommendation. The jurisdiction of this Court over the subject matter of this proceeding *828 is derivative and can rise no higher than its sourcethe proceeding before the Judicial Standards Commission. The jurisdiction of a court over the subject matter is always a proper inquiry for that court, whether raised by the litigants or not.
The Act of 1971 creating the Judicial Standards Commission purports to establish a procedure, other than impeachment, whereby a judge may be censured or removed from his office. The Act provides, GS 7A-376, that a judge "removed for other than mental or physical incapacity receives no retirement compensation, and is disqualified from holding further judicial office." Thus, the Act purports to provide a means whereby a judge may be deprived of retirement benefits for which he has, while in office, made substantial payments to the State Retirement Fund, may be deprived of the office to which he has been elected by the people for a specified term of years, and may be denied the right, held by every other qualified voter of the State, to seek election to any judicial office so long as he lives.
The Constitution of North Carolina, Art. XI, § 1, declares:
While the majority opinion in this matter is technically correct in saying this is not a criminal proceeding, since it is a proceeding not brought or tried in any court of justice, it is neither technically nor substantially correct to say its purpose is not to punish the respondent for alleged wrongdoing. Removal from office and disqualification thereafter to hold office are expressly declared by the Constitution to be punishments. If it were not so, common sense would require the conclusion that to remove a judge from office, deny him the retirement compensation for which he has paid, and disqualify him for life to hold judicial office again is a far more serious punishment than a fine of fifty dollars for speeding or even imprisonment for thirty days.
In my view, a formal order of this Court, following a publicized recommendation of an official State agency, censuring a judge for misconduct in office, is a severe punishment. To say it is not, because the purpose of the Court is to maintain the public's confidence in its judicial system, is equivalent, in law and in fact, to saying execution for crime is not punishment therefor because the purpose is to improve the environment. In any event, nothing in this record indicates that the Judicial Standards Commission ever notified this respondent that the purpose of its proceeding was to censure him rather than remove him from office. A recommendation by it for removal was a distinct possibility until its actual recommendation was made at the end of the proceeding.
Even a judge charged with misconduct in office is entitled to a fair trial before a fact finding body which has not already determined his probable guilt to its own satisfaction. Even an accused judge is entitled to the basic constitutional protections afforded by Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses to one suspected of rape, murder, burglary, robbery or embezzlement.
As the Constitution of North Carolina, Art. I, § 35, states, "A frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty." Two of these are expressed in the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses. The 1972 Amendment to the Constitution, Art. IV, § 17, authorizing the General Assembly to enact legislation providing for removal and censure of judges, obviously contemplated that it would do so within the limitations of those clauses.
GS 7A-376 provides:
Under this statute, this Court may act only upon a recommendation of the Judicial Standards Commission, an administrative agency. This statute, and the remaining sections comprising the Judicial Standards Commission Act, GS Ch. 7A, Art. 30, establish no standard or guide-line whatsoever by which to determine whether the Commission shall recommend, or this Court shall impose, the punishment of censure or the infinitely more severe punishment of removal, loss of retirement benefits and disqualification to hold further judicial office. The Commission, in its unbridled discretion, for unstated reasons, political, personal or otherwise in nature, can choose between the two on a case by case basis, recommending the extreme penalty of removal of one judge and the much milder censure of another judge though their conduct be identical, or though the judge to be censured be found to have accepted bribes and the judge to be removed be found to have done nothing worse than sign without authority (as Judge Crutchfield is said to have done) orders granting permission to operate a motor vehicle. Such statutory invitation to gross favoritism by an administrative agency in the choice of punishment to be imposed for wrongdoing is not consistent with the Equal Protection Clause. Compare, Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S. Ct. 2726, 33 L. Ed. 2d 346. To hold such a statute invalid it is not required that actual abuse of such unlimited discretion be shown.
GS 7A-377 is the only statutory provision relating to the procedure before the Judicial Standards Commission. It provides:
Obviously, this statute makes the Judicial Standards Commission the investigator, the accuser, the prosecutor, the jury to find the facts, and the determiner of the sentence to be recommended. If this be due process of law, it would be difficult to find a procedural violation of that basic constitutional right. Even one accused of the most vicious crime is not placed on trial before a petit jury drawn from the police department which investigated the report of the crime, the grand jury which indicted him and the staff of the prosecuting attorney.
Nothing in the statute provides for putting in evidence the initial complaint filed with the Commission, or even disclosing to the accused judge the name of his accuser or the complaint filed. On the contrary, the statute provides the complaint shall be confidential, unless the accused judge, prior to seeing it, requests otherwise; that is, requests that it be made public. Likewise, nothing in the statute requires or contemplates putting in evidence, at the hearing before the Commission, the reports it receives from its investigators, or the calling of such investigators for cross-examination. Yet, the Commission has received these reports, which, necessarily, are largely hearsay and conclusions of the investigator based upon unspecified data, and, on the basis of these, has made its initial determination of the probable guilt of the respondent before he is even notified that a hearing will be conducted. Again, the statute does not provide for, or appear to contemplate, a public hearing. Such a Star Chamber proceeding is not consistent with due process of law.
Again, the statute delegates to this administrative body unlimited authority "to prescribe its own rules of procedure." The General Assembly has prescribed at length and in detail the procedure by which the several courts of justice in this State are to hear the parties and determine the facts in both civil and criminal actions, but this administrative body is set free to sail on an uncharted sea, to write its own rules of procedure, and to amend them at will. This is "delegation run riot" and violates both Art. II, § 1, and Art. I, § 6, of the Constitution of North Carolina. It is no answer to say the statute provides the respondent judge must be "given a hearing affording due process of law" when the statute, itself, gives the Commission unbridled discretion to prescribe and amend its rules of procedure and confers upon it the combined roles of investigator, accuser, prosecutor and finder of fact.
The statute authorizes the Commission to recommend, and this Court, upon such recommendation, to impose the extreme penalty of removal from office, forfeiture of retirement benefits and disqualification, for life, to hold any judicial office, if, by such a proceeding, the Commission finds the judge has been guilty of "conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that brings the judicial office into disrepute." This does not mean wilful misconduct, for that word "wilful," specifically used to modify "misconduct in office," is omitted in this specification. It does not mean misconduct in office, or criminal conduct in or out of office, or habitual intemperance on or off the bench, or neglect of official duties, for all of these things are specified by the statute as distinct grounds for censure or removal. What conduct, not falling within any of these other specified categories of behavior, constitutes "conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that brings the judicial office into disrepute?" The statute does not say. No judge can possibly determine, in advance of Commission action *831 against him, what conduct by him, in or out of his courtroom, will be asserted by the Commission as ground for his censure or removal. Could it be supposed for a moment that, consistent with the Due Process Clause, a fine of fifty dollars or a sentence to imprisonment for twenty-four hours could be imposed for "conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that brings the judicial office in disrepute?" Yet, this statute provides that this Commission can recommend and this Court thereupon can impose, ex post facto, removal from office upon this charge, and that is precisely the charge on which Judge Crutchfield is now censured. If ever there was a "vague and over broad" statutory statement of a ground for the imposition of punishment, it is this one"conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that brings the judicial office into disrepute." The Due Process Clause simply will not permit censure or removal of a judge upon such a charge. See: In Re Burrus, 275 N.C. 517, 531, 169 S.E.2d 879; Surplus Store, Inc. v. Hunter, 257 N.C. 206, 125 S.E.2d 764; State v. Hales, 256 N.C. 27, 32, 122 S.E.2d 768; 16 Am.Jur.2d, Constitutional Law, § 552; 16A C.J.S. Constitutional Law § 580.