Opinion ID: 836180
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: breaching faith

Text: Beyond acting in dereliction of the law, respondent in a very fundamental sense has broken the bonds with the people of his district. By his own acknowledgement, he has knowingly departed from their political community to become part of another political community. While there may well be some artificiality to these political communities, and while the economic, social and cultural circumstances of the 2nd division may not be markedly different from those of the 1st division, our system of republican government nonetheless is predicated upon the idea that the we the people are entitled, and are obligated, to assert their control over the actions of government through the selection of local representatives. By this process, the people communicate their views concerning the kind of leadership they desire from their public institutions. Particularly in the case of the selection of judgespersons who do not ordinarily make public policy, and who cannot be considered representative officers in the same sense as persons elected to the legislative and executive branches of government [32] there must be some further rationale for why all judges of our state, with the exception of Supreme Court Justices, are elected by districts or circuits. See Const. 1963, art. VI, §§ 8, 11, and 16. [33] At least part of this explanation must certainly be that the people are entitled to select as their judges persons whose sense of values, whose judgment, whose life experiences, are in some sense a function of their roots within that community, persons who have shared in some tangible way the day-to-day trials and tribulations, and influences, of citizens within that community. Although the shared experiences of persons within the 1st and 2nd divisions may not be as dissimilar as those between more geographically far-flung communities, it is nevertheless an outgrowth of our respect for the integrity of local government, and specifically the people's right and obligation to engage in local self-government, that we must take seriously the matter of a public official who has breached the faith with his community that is required by our constitution by departing from it. In sum, respondent's acknowledgement that he moved outside of the 1st division after 2005 effectively acknowledged both a violation of the law and constitution, and a breach of faith with the people of his community, both of which threaten public confidence in the . . . integrity of the judiciary, Canon 2(B), and risk expos[ing] the courts to obloquy, contempt, censure, or reproach. MCR 9.104(A)(2). Thus, I agree with the JTC that respondent's vacation of his electoral district constitutes judicial misconduct and warrants an imposition of sanctions.