Opinion ID: 1127610
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Explication of the Court's Jurisdiction

Text: 1. In 1976, Nevada citizens voted to amend article 6 of the Nevada Constitution, entitled Judicial Department, to include therein a new section 21 that established a Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline. [12] From the examination of our Constitution's Judicial Department article, it is evident that jurisdiction to define what actions the Commission has the power to sanction as judicial misconduct reposes in the Supreme Court of Nevada, rather than in the Commission. The Constitution plainly declares that the Supreme Court shall make appropriate rules for:  The grounds of censure. Nev. Const., art. 6 § 21(5)(b) (emphasis added). The Constitution does not suggest or infer that the Commission shares this power in any way whatsoever. As a legal corollary, the Commission, therefore, would be acting in excess of its jurisdiction at any time it might undertake to sanction, as misconduct, any judicial behavior that has not been proscribed definitively by either the rules adopted for the Commission by this court pursuant to its constitutional mandate, Nevada criminal law [13] or the Nevada Constitution. The Constitution simply does not contemplate that the Commission members may define judicial misconduct for themselves based on their own ad hoc judgments concerning what conduct is desirable. To condone such a practice would not merely offend the Constitution's letter but its underlying policy. Judges could be rendered subject to censure and to removal from office without any fair prior notice that actions questioned by the Commission might be treated as wrongful. Judges could be subjected to discipline based on whatever notions of propriety might be harbored by the Commission's shifting membership at any given time. We should hasten to mention that this court thus far has issued no writ, and it has made no determination that excesses of jurisdiction have occurred as alleged by petitioner Whitehead. By deciding to consider the petition, the judgment we made was simply that (based on the petition and supporting documents) the petitioner has set forth issues of arguable merit. (Emphasis added.) [14] 2. In the same vein, the referenced section 21 of our Constitution's Judicial Department article leaves no room for the Attorney General and associates to argue that jurisdiction to define procedures to be followed in receiving, investigating or processing disciplinary complaints rests with the Commission rather than with this court. The Constitution in article 6, section 21(5), explicitly states that the Supreme Court shall make appropriate rules for (c) The conduct of investigations and hearings.  (Emphasis added.) Thus, jurisdiction to define how the Commission shall receive and process complaints lies entirely with this court, and not with the Commission. Pursuant to the constitutional mandate just quoted, this court has heretofore adopted three different sets of rules to govern the Commission. In the initial set we clearly identified the rules by their title as interim rules since at that time we had absolutely no experience with the problems of implementing a structure for judicial discipline. In short order, we concluded that our first effort was inadequate, and so we substituted a second provisional set of procedural rules for Commission action that we designated as revised interim rules. With experience, we later became convinced that these rules also were flawed, and, following an extended period of study and solicitation of expert advice, the court adopted and published the permanent administrative and procedural rules (ARJD) that came into effect as of April 29, 1988. The ARJD which govern activities of the Commission at the present date, were promulgated with the full knowledge and acquiescence of both then-Attorney General McKay and the Commission. Until the activities of the present attorney general were questioned by Judge Whitehead's counsel in these proceedings, neither Attorney General Del Papa nor the Discipline Commission ever objected to the adoption of any rule on which the petitioner Whitehead here relies. It should be mentioned parenthetically that our study of the turmoil that has characterized the Commission's activities extended over a period of several years. To aid this court, we created a Study Committee that included Justice Charles Springer as well as lawyers and lay persons with substantial and relevant credentials. Study Committee members included a present United States Senator, a professor of political science, the immediate past chair of the Discipline Commission and a former United States Attorney for Nevada who has served as a legislator on the judiciary committee. Two Study Committee members had, in fact, served together on the Assembly Judiciary Committee when the language of article 6, section 21, was being prepared for submission to the voters of Nevada; and thus they, in effect, were coauthors of its language. This Study Committee conducted extensive factual and legal research, consulted experts at the National Judicial College and elsewhere, and finally submitted an extensive and thoughtful report that expressed conclusions concerning a perceived history of problems and dysfunctions. [15] Thus, again, we suggest that the Attorney General and associates have no grounds for advising the Commission to question this court's authority to enact and enforce any of the procedural rules that we have promulgated to govern the investigations and hearings of that body. (The issues of when and through what procedural expedients we may take corrective action if the rules are not obeyed are matters that we will consider shortly.) This court then submitted the Study Committee's report and its draft set of rules to a wide range of persons for comment, including members of the State Bar of Nevada, representatives of the news media, members of the Commission and the then-Attorney General. Comments were received from all the foregoing, and in almost all instances, this court accommodated the suggestions by making changes in the rules. Neither the then-Attorney General, the membership of the Commission, nor anyone else, raised any objection to ARJD 40(7) and ARJD 5, which form the basis of our action in the case now before us. 3. We will, nonetheless, discuss the constitutional justifications for those rules, after digressing briefly to lay at rest a contention that the Attorney General and associates continue to proffer in briefs to this court and to promote in public discussions with the news media about this pending litigation. The Attorney General and associates apparently believe that none of the activities they have pursued in the Commission's name in their extended effort to establish grounds for charges against petitioner Whitehead, and to find witnesses to support them, can possibly be wrong, whatever the ARJD may provide. This is so, they contend, because the procedures that they have employed in the Commission's name were approved by this court in the case of Goldman v. Nevada Comm'n on Judicial Discipline, 108 Nev. 251, 830 P.2d 107 (1992). With all due respect to the Attorney General and associates it appears that their researchers have not read our Goldman opinion with adequate care. If that had been done, it would be recognized that Commission proceedings against Judge Goldman were conducted under the prior revised interim rules which no longer even exist. The current rules were adopted after the Commission's ruling in Goldman. Indeed, in Goldman, this court explicitly noted that the current rules were not in effect at the time of the proceedings against appellant and did not govern those proceedings. 108 Nev. at 258 n. 4, 830 P.2d at 111 n. 4. There are, furthermore, several other significant factual distinctions between the Goldman case and this one. In Goldman, for example, upon employment of the special prosecutor, Attorney General McKay withdrew totally from all personal participation in the proceedings and allowed the special prosecutor real independence. In sharp contrast to the role that Attorney General Del Papa has assigned herself to play in the present case, Attorney General McKay permitted the independent special prosecutor hired by the Commission in Goldman to perform his function as independent counsel to the Commission without interference or guidance from Attorney General McKay. This, of course, enabled Attorney General McKay to avoid generating the kinds of conflicts that would have been present if he had simply used a special prosecutor as an attache and special deputy attorney general to help him pursue ends that he may have desired to see realized. There may be various other significant differences between the role played by special counsel in the Goldman case and the role assumed by Attorney General Del Papa's special deputy attorney general/special prosecutor in this case; however, because such differences raise concerns that may relate to the merits of Judge Whitehead's petition, any in-depth consideration of them would not now be appropriate. [16] Suffice it to say for present purposes that the Goldman case (a) involved an appeal and not a writ proceeding challenging jurisdiction; (b) was decided under an entirely different set of less-definitive rules; and (c) raised and decided issues that were not remotely coincident with those here involved. It therefore is not a relevant judicial precedent on the issues before us. 4. Aside from their invocation of Goldman, the ultimate position of the Attorney General and associates, as we previously have mentioned, appears to be that even if the actions they have pursued and counselled are not in compliance with the applicable rules duly promulgated by this court pursuant to the Nevada Constitution, we are powerless to correct any mere interlocutory deviation from the rules by issuing a writ, and especially not a secret one. We therefore turn to review the pertinent legal authorities which repel the misperception under which the Commission members evidently have been counselled to place themselves in jeopardy of sanctions for contempt. 5. In the matter before us, petitioner Whitehead's counsel are alternatively seeking either a writ of prohibition or a writ of mandamus. They ask for a writ of prohibition on grounds that acts done and being done in the Commission's name exceed the Commission's jurisdiction as set out in the substantive and procedural rules this court adopted in response to our Constitutional mandate, Nev. Const., art. 6 § 21(5)(a-c), and that such acts, therefore, should be prohibited from continuing. [17] Petitioner's counsel alternatively seek a writ of mandamus on grounds that because the Commission has been induced to act in ways that do not comport with its lawfully-defined functions, mandamus should issue commanding compliance with all lawful duties that heretofore have been ignored in the proceeding against Judge Whitehead. [18] It is common practice in writ proceedings to tender alternative requests when seeking writs, just as petitioner's counsel have done here, because in many instances pertinent facts can arguably be marshalled in a manner that satisfies the requirements of two or more different writs. That is arguably true in the case at bar. Judging this matter simply from the perspective of the historical availability of prohibition or mandamus as recognized in the Nevada Constitution, Nevada statutes and case authority, either prohibition or mandamus seemingly should be available to correct the abuses petitioner's counsel claim have been done in the Commission's name, provided that the remaining traditional condition for each writ is satisfied. [19] 6. The remaining, traditional condition precedent to the issuance of a writ concerning which the court would need to satisfy itself before issuing a writ of prohibition or mandamus (at least, if this case involved any governmental agency other than the Judicial Discipline Commission) would be whether the alleged deviations from lawful duty, if they occurred, were of such a kind and magnitude that the petitioner had no adequate remedy by appeal or otherwise to correct them. [20] In this case, we naturally will express no opinion on how this question should be decided until the merits of petitioner Whitehead's request for a writ are eventually considered. As noted, in issuing our prior orders indicating that we would consider issuing a corrective writ, we merely found that the petitioner presented  (1) an arguable basis for contending that there had been deviations from the rules governing the Commission; and, (2) such deviations may arguably have been of a character and magnitude that petitioner has no adequate remedy to correct them, except through writ proceedings. As to the basis for the foregoing provisional determinations, our reasons were quite straightforward. If petitioner's contentions about actions taken in the Commission's name prove true (and Commission members may not know the full truth about such contentions, any more than this court yet does), [21] practices employed and counselled by the Attorney General and associates may involve multiple violations of this court's constitutionally-mandated rules. If such violations occurred, they may likewise be of such a magnitude and character that neither an appeal in the narrow sense, after awaiting a final dispositive Commission order (which may never issue), nor any other legal remedy except a writ of prohibition or mandamus, will be adequate to prevent the injury and harm that petitioner claims to be suffering. Without belaboring this point further, when we issued our prior orders, we were satisfied that petitioner had tendered a sufficient showing of ongoing and irreparable harm to justify our provisional determination that we should consider the matter further, to ascertain whether the facts justify issuance of an interlocutory writ of mandamus or prohibition. 7. In any other case, the foregoing would end the discussion; however, the Attorney General and associates appear to contend that because the Commission members are serving as an independent entity of our state government, and are not in fact part of the Judicial Department of government (even though the constitutional provision creating the Commission places it there), actions performed in the Commission's name are wholly exempt from review by extraordinary judicial writ. A parallel contention was considered and rejected in State v. Board of Regents, 70 Nev. 144, 261 P.2d 515 (1953). Board of Regents involved an attempted invocation of this court's authority to examine, by way of extraordinary writ, a tenured professor's disciplinary proceedings before the University of Nevada's Board of Regents, an independent body outside the Judicial Department of our government. As in the case now before us, the Attorney General of Nevada then contended that the professor's challenge to the disciplinary charges against him could not he heard in this court for the exact reasons the Attorney General and associates now tender. As Attorney General Del Papa and associates do now, the Attorney General in Board of Regents based this contention on the proposition that the Board of Regents, being outside the Judicial Department of Nevada government, was not subject to this court's review. This court rejected the contention: It is first asserted by respondents that, since the board of regents is a duly constituted administrative board established under the constitution and statutes as a part of the executive department, it is beyond any control by the courts, and that this is so irrespective of whether the action of the board was executive, administrative or judicial. In support of this contention respondents rely upon King v. Board of Regents, 65 Nev. 533, 200 P.2d 221. That case does not so hold. Our opinion dealing with the exclusive control of the university by the board of regents expressly and repeatedly referred to their constitutional, executive and administrative capacity, and to their executive and administrative control. That the constitutional separation of powers prevents any judicial review of the judicial or quasi judicial acts of the board of regents when an excess of jurisdiction is in question was not the holding in the King case or in any other authorities cited by respondents. The contrary is the rule in this state and in virtually all other jurisdictions. Id. at 147-48, 261 P.2d at 516-17 (citations omitted). The Board of Regents case is closely on point, and totally dispositive as to the contention under consideration. Many other Nevada authorities to the same effect can be cited. [22] Before moving to another subject, however, we further emphasize the principles discussed in the instant issue by referring to a case which not only implicated the precise contention proffered by the Attorney General and associates, but also concerned facts strikingly similar to those of the present case. In People ex rel. Harrod v. Illinois Cts. Com., 69 Ill.2d 445, 14 Ill.Dec. 248, 372 N.E.2d 53 (1977), the Illinois Supreme Court concluded that it clearly possessed the power to exercise mandamus jurisdiction over the Illinois Courts Commission, notwithstanding the fact that the Illinois Constitution did not even authorize that state's high court to review the Courts Commission's judicial disciplinary decisions on appeal. In Harrod, the Courts Commission contended that the Illinois Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain a judge's mandamus petition challenging the jurisdiction of the Courts Commission. The Courts Commission argued that the court could not issue a writ of mandamus because the Courts Commission was a constitutionally created body with exclusive power to interpret and define its authority. The Illinois Supreme Court predictably rejected the Commission's contention, however, and concluded instead that, although the Commission  like the court  derived its authority from the state constitution, the Commission was not a coequal fourth branch of government, nor was it a court within the meaning of the state constitution's judicial article. Rather, it was the function and duty of the Illinois Supreme Court, not the Commission, to act as the final arbiter of the Illinois Constitution. As such, the court held, the Illinois Supreme Court possessed both the authority and the responsibility to determine whether the actions of the Courts Commission in judicial discipline proceedings were beyond the Commission's constitutional grant of authority and, if so, to declare such actions invalid. Thus, in Harrod, the court totally rejected the suggestion that the Courts Commission could interpret and determine the scope of its own authority, as well as the corresponding implication that the court was without power in a writ proceeding to determine whether the state constitution's grants or limitations of authority had been exceeded by the Courts Commission. Other states have also had little trouble entertaining extraordinary writs challenging the jurisdiction of their state judicial discipline commissions. State ex rel. Turner v. Earle, 295 So.2d 609 (Fla.1974) (supreme court had jurisdiction over Judicial Qualifications Commission under rule-making power and all-writs provisions of state constitution); State ex rel. Shea v. Judicial Standards Comm., 198 Mont. 15, 643 P.2d 210 (1982) (writ of prohibition issued because Judicial Standards Commission exceeded its jurisdiction); Christensen v. Bd. of Comm'rs, 61 Ohio St.3d 534, 575 N.E.2d 790 (1991) (Ohio Supreme Court held a writ of prohibition proper where Commission about to exercise quasi-judicial power); Herald Ass'n v. Judicial Conduct Bd., 149 Vt. 233, 544 A.2d 596 (1988) (Vermont Supreme Court entertained extraordinary writ seeking disclosure of judicial conduct board materials); Richter v. State Comm'n on Judicial Conduct, 106 Misc.2d 22, 430 N.Y.S.2d 796 (N.Y.Sup.Ct.1980) (granting writ of prohibition because Commission acted in excess of jurisdiction); see also Matter of Marquardt, 161 Ariz. 206, 778 P.2d 241 (1989) (Supreme Court is the final arbiter on judicial discipline questions); In re Greenwood, 796 P.2d 682 (Utah 1990) (Supreme Court is constitutionally obligated to review judicial conduct proceedings). 8. As noted above, the current rules which guide and limit practices to which the Commission must conform when it receives complaints, conducts investigations and holds hearings were promulgated by this court pursuant to constitutional mandate  and without adverse comment from the Attorney General's office or the Commission as to the rules specifically concerned in this case. ARJD 40(7), as much, or more, for the benefit of prosecutors as for respondent judges subject to possible disciplinary action, provides: Review of interlocutory orders of the commission, which are considered either by the prosecuting officer or the respondent judge to be without or in excess of jurisdiction, may be sought by way of petition for an appropriate extraordinary writ. These rules were partially based on recognition of problems that a prosecutor for the Commission had faced in obtaining a speedy, authoritative answer to a jurisdictional issue that related to a Reno municipal judge. ARJD 40(7) was, of course, also adopted in the recognition that prior Commission practices, in which investigations concerning illusory or unfounded charges about innocent judges had languished while the subject judges and their families were subjected to the torments occasioned by untruthful leaks to the press, could no longer be tolerated. It is most difficult to raise a legitimate question or challenge to the sound policy which supports the enactment of ARJD 40(7) and the constitutional and precedential authority which supports the rule. ARJD 5(1) of the current procedural rules provides: All proceedings must be confidential until there has been a determination of probable cause and a filing of formal statement of charges. Under the constitution, case law and especially under ARJD 5(1), the Vice-Chief Justice's decision to order files in these proceedings to be kept confidential, in order that the confidentiality of the proceedings before the Commission would be maintained, cannot plausibly be questioned. In various orders hereinbefore entered, all members of the court, as now constituted, have implicitly recognized the foregoing, as the State Bar of Nevada's Board of Governors did explicitly at the Board's official meeting on December 17, 1993. If we correctly understand the Attorney General and associates, they may be harboring some idea that Nevada's constitutional mandate of confidentiality of judicial discipline proceedings is, nonetheless, itself unconstitutional under the Federal Constitution. In the previously quoted letter of October 14, 1993, the Commission was induced to protest vaguely about secret, illegal and void `orders.' If the notions of the Attorney General and associates are predicated on hopes that the United States Supreme Court would support their views by so interpreting the Federal Constitution, their prospects seem most doubtful in light of the comment concerning such confidentiality provisions articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U.S. 829, 98 S.Ct. 1535, 56 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978). 9. In section 3 of this opinion we have already treated the untenable contention that in Goldman v. Nevada Comm'n on Judicial Discipline, supra , this court approved the procedural practices employed by the Attorney General and her colleagues in the Commission's name. We now turn to address their contention that in Goldman we made a pronouncement that establishes the point that this court has no authority to intervene in Commission proceedings by issuing an interlocutory writ to review alleged Commission abuses. In their Opposition to Motion to Strike, filed herein on October 27, 1993, the Attorney General and associates assert that in Goldman, this court recognized the independent authority of the Commission as follows: A Commission decision to censure, remove, or retire is not merely advisory or recommendatory in nature; it is of independent force and effect absent perfection of an appeal to this court. This broad constitutional authority distinguishes Nevada's commission from similar commissions in other jurisdictions .... It is readily apparent that by deviating from the California model, the drafters of article 6, section 21 of the Nevada Constitution rejected California's recommendation system in favor of procedures intended to vest a far greater degree of authority in Nevada's commission . We conclude, therefore, that the Nevada Constitution does not contemplate this court's de novo or independent review of factual determinations of the commission on appeal. To the contrary, the constitution confines the scope of appellate review of the commission's factual findings to a determination of whether the evidence in the record as a whole provides clear and convincing support for the commission's findings. The commission possesses the authority to weigh and balance all the equities as well as the rights of the judge and the public's interest in the competence and ethical integrity of the bench.... The proceedings before the commission must be allowed to run their full constitutional course from their inception to their conclusion. At first glance this excerpt certainly has power to persuade a casual reader, such as a newspaper reporter, that this court is acting in a manner directly contrary to the views expressed in Goldman. In fact, it takes a trained lawyer some time to unravel just how the above quotation was constructed by the Attorney General and associates and how far it deviates from the approved editorial practices that we expect lawyers to employ when they prepare documents for submission to this court. In reality, the above quote consists of seven sentences lifted out of different paragraphs and spanning nine pages of text and two entirely distinct sections of the Goldman opinion. The quoted passage is deceiving as to which sentences are at the beginnings of paragraphs, which are at the middle and which are at the end. Some of the sentences are emphasized, with no indication that the emphasis has been supplied, as proper editorial procedures require. It is difficult for even a sophisticated researcher to discover all this, because the Attorney General and associates cited only to a year-old slip opinion, even though reference to the available printed report would have been the approved practice to facilitate confirmation of the point being tendered. In several instances the Attorney General and associates even failed to use ellipses to indicate that material had been omitted between sentences. The last sentence of the passage is taken out of context and is placed adjacent to a sentence that supplies a misleading meaning to it. The truth is that the last sentence in the above quote simply means and says that the Governor may not interrupt disciplinary proceedings before the Commission by assembling a panel of physicians to allow a judge charged with misconduct to retire with an enhanced disability pension. 10. Up to this point there appears to be no basis (except as an emotional reaction or a political stance) for disagreement with any of the foregoing. As has been demonstrated above, conscientious review of the pertinent legal authorities repels a contention either that actions the Attorney General and associates have advised the Commission to take, or activities pursued by the Attorney General and associates in the Commission's name, are immune from our review. The pertinent authorities also clearly establish that this court is obligated to maintain the confidentiality of any petition for our review (prior to a determination of probable cause) in order to maintain the confidentiality of proceedings to which Commission proceedings are constitutionally entitled. Understandably concerned about untruthfulness concerning these proceedings that was being generated by a Nevada newspaper on the basis of illegal leaks, the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Nevada undertook to evaluate the bases for this court's actions. After its investigation, in a public statement issued by the Board on December 17, 1993, the State Bar of Nevada publicly expressed its conclusion as follows: Administrative and Procedural Rule 40(7) allows a judge to challenge the jurisdiction of the Commission. Judge Whitehead has filed a petition challenging the jurisdiction of the Commission. Until there has been a determination that probable cause exists, proceedings alleging misconduct are to be conducted confidentially. The court has issued an order lifting the confidentiality of the Whitehead proceedings based on a waiver of confidentiality by Judge Whitehead. This is all rather obvious, but we have, nonetheless, often belabored the obvious in this opinion in order to disabuse Commission members of incorrect legal impressions they may have received from the newspapers or other poorly informed sources. We expect that much that is included herein about the substantial legal underpinnings for our judicial actions will be new information to at least some of the Commission members. We certainly hope so; we have no desire to experience further delay in these proceedings as a result of contumacious conduct. While the substantial precedential underpinnings of our prior orders may not have heretofore been well-explained to Commission members, this opinion's assertion of our jurisdiction to entertain these proceedings should surprise no one. A number of prior orders have been entered herein by various members of the court then available. Our rationale for concluding that this court has jurisdiction to proceed herein may not have been as well-explicated in those orders as it is in this opinion; nevertheless, by joining in one or more of them, we think that each member of the present panel (except Senior Justice Zenoff) has implicitly recognized that this court has proper jurisdiction over these proceedings, and that, until the confidentiality was ended by petitioner Whitehead's waiving of confidentiality, this court had a constitutionally-based obligation to shepherd the proceedings in a confidential setting. Before declaring himself disqualified in this case, our Chief Justice joined in several of such orders. In his disqualification statement, our Chief Justice also stated, among other things:  While the Nevada Supreme Court has authority to review preliminary orders of the Commission as well as its final result, any preliminary review should be done swiftly and with deference to the Commission. (Emphasis added.) It, therefore, cannot be questioned that our Chief Justice also disagreed with the argument of the Attorney General and associates as to their contentions that this court lacks jurisdiction to undertake review of Commission actions. We likewise consider the Chief Justice to have been correct in saying that our review should be done swiftly [consistent with due process] and with deference to the Commission. That is why, when the Commission was resistant to the court's initial directive to deliver certain records directly to Judge Whitehead's counsel, we modified our order to provide that the records be delivered to this court for its private ) in camera ) inspection only. The merits of these proceedings might have been determined by now if the Commission had not been incorrectly advised that our orders were void because they were secret and because the Commission is beyond any judicial review. On the subject of the deference which we believe is the Commission's due, more will be said in the conclusion of this opinion, which follows. In that conclusion we explain that, in legal effect, the Commission is a constitutionally-created Court of Judicial Performance and Qualifications, whose activities are entitled to extreme deference when duly confined to their proper constitutionally-contemplated sphere.