Opinion ID: 1132505
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: propriety of commission's public release of its report when filing record with supreme court

Text: Petitioner asserts, and the commission's brief tacitly concedes, that on filing the record of commission proceedings in this court, the commission disseminated a press release and copies of its findings, conclusions, and recommendation in this matter. (18) Petitioner contends that such dissemination (1) constituted a public admonishment even though the commission is authorized on its own to issue only private admonishments (Const., art. VI, § 18, subd. (c); fn. 8, ante ) and (2) violated article VI, section 18, subdivision (f) of the Constitution (The Judicial Council shall make rules ... providing for confidentiality of proceedings), which was construed in Mosk v. Superior Court (1979) 25 Cal.3d 474 [159 Cal. Rptr. 494, 601 P.2d 1030], to require that commission proceedings be confidential, at least while they are under way. A similar contention was rejected in Roberts v. Commission on Judicial Performance, supra, 33 Cal.3d 739, 750, primarily in reliance on rule 902(a) of the California Rules of Court, which provides that subject to certain exceptions, commission proceedings shall be confidential until a record is filed by the Commission in the Supreme Court. [14] That rule is consistent with the constitutional requirement that the Judicial Council make rules providing for confidentiality (art. VI, § 18, subd. (f).) Termination of the constitutional ban on public disclosure after the filing of the record in this court is demonstrated by the analysis in Mosk, where the court noted the absence of any indication that the people of California intended to change the constitutional requirement of confidentiality by revision of article VI in 1966 (25 Cal.3d at p. 499) and examined the predecessor provisions of former article VI, section 10b (set out in fn. 14, p. 490 of 25 Cal.3d), which provided that commission proceedings shall be confidential except that ... the record filed by the commission in the Supreme Court ... upon such filing loses its confidential character. The question presented, therefore, is whether public disclosure should be restricted beyond the point  filing of the commission's record in this court  at which article VI, section 18, subdivision (f) of the Constitution and the applicable Judicial Council rules neither prohibit nor require such disclosure. The United States Supreme Court has identified three public interests served by rules that require confidentiality in judicial disciplinary matters: (1) protecting complainants and witnesses against recrimination or retaliation, (2) protecting judges from publication of frivolous or unwarranted charges, and (3) maintaining confidence in the courts by avoiding premature disclosure of groundless claims of judicial misconduct. ( Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia (1979) 435 U.S. 829, 835 [56 L.Ed.2d 1, 8, 98 S.Ct. 1535].) Justice Mosk, dissenting in Roberts v. Commission on Judicial Performance, supra, 33 Cal.3d 739, 751, urged that still another interest  protection of this court's right to decide for itself whether to administer public censure  would be protected by preventing the commission from publicizing its recommendation of censure, together with supporting findings, upon filing them with this court. Offsetting these interests in confidentiality is the policy of promoting knowledgeable discussion of governmental affairs by providing access to all relevant information in the absence of some overriding interest in confidentiality. (See, e.g., Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court (1982) 457 U.S. 596, 606 [73 L.Ed.2d 248, 256-257, 102 S.Ct. 2613] [Public scrutiny of a criminal trial enhances the quality and safeguards the integrity of the factfinding process ... [and] permits the public to participate in and serve as a check upon the judicial process].) Of these four factors favoring confidentiality, only one  maintenance of confidence in the courts  warrants even a postponement of public access to the record of commission proceedings once it is filed in this court. By that time all the evidence has been gathered, so that the identity of the witnesses and, probably, of the complainant, has been disclosed to the accused judge. Moreover, the commission has by then satisfied itself that the evidence before it warrants some form of discipline, rendering it highly unlikely that this court will deem the charges wholly unwarranted or frivolous. Protection of the judge's reputation in the event of ultimate exoneration no more necessitates confidentiality after the proceedings reach this court than does protection of the reputation of a lawyer or other professional, whose license to practice has been administratively placed in jeopardy, require confidentiality in judicial review proceedings. Finally, we do not agree that publicizing the commission's findings and recommendation upon the filing of its record here is equivalent to public censure by this court and thus restrict[s] the options available to us ( Roberts v. Commission on Judicial Performance, supra, 33 Cal.3d 739, 752 (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.)). If we decide that public censure is unwarranted, we have ample opportunity to provide appropriate exoneration in our explaining that conclusion. There remains, however, the question whether the commission's publicizing of its findings and recommendation immediately upon filing the record here unnecessarily jeopardizes public confidence in the integrity of a sitting judge and thus in the judicial process. The question does not arise if the commission recommends the judge's removal or retirement. In that event, the judge is immediately disqualified from acting as a judge (Const., art. VI, § 18, subd. (a)), and there is a public need to know the reason for that disqualification. But if the recommendation is censure, the judge continues to sit. The fact that the commission's report to the court is couched not in terms of charges or accusations but in the form of findings of fact and conclusions of law seems apt to create an impression on the public that the findings and conclusions are established fact  an acceptance that will not be dispelled until the proceedings in this court culminate in the filing of an opinion. The intermediate steps, such as the filing of a petition challenging the findings and the presentation of oral argument, are likely to receive considerably less public attention than the act  filing of the commission's report and record  that first brings the matter to full-blown public attention. When the commission's report and record are filed, the judge has 30 days within which to file a petition seeking rejection or modification by this court of the commission's recommendation. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 919(b).) If the commission's report and record were to remain confidential until the filing of a petition, and the contents of the recommendation and findings released to the public simultaneously with release of the petition, there would appear far less probability of the public's accepting as final those findings that were contested in the petition. To that extent there would be more public willingness to suspend judgment concerning the contested findings during the pendency of proceedings in this court and until the filing of our opinion. Erosion of confidence in the judge that was unnecessary and improper because based on findings ultimately rejected by us would be far less likely. (19) We think that the public interest in minimizing doubts about the judicial process arising from charges that may not be upheld warrants a postponement of the release to the public of the commission's report and of the record of its proceedings until either a petition for review by this court has been filed or the time for filing such petition has expired. The short additional period of secrecy beyond that mandated by article VI, section 18, subdivision (f) of the Constitution is well worth the offsetting public benefit. Accordingly, we direct the clerk of this court henceforth, in any case in which the commission has recommended censure but not removal or retirement of a judge, to keep all filed and received documents and exhibits under seal, and to conceal the identity of the judge, until either the judge files a petition for review or the time for such filing has expired. We further recommend to the Judicial Council that it provide by rule (1) that the commission refrain from making its proceedings or recommendation in such a case public during a similar period and (2) that any press release or other publicity calling initial attention to the filing of the report and record make appropriate reference to the petition for review, if any, to the end that the public will perceive that the commission's recommendation and findings are wholly or partly contested by the judge. Finally, pending action by the Judicial Council on that recommendation, we urge the commission to comply with the substance of the recommendation voluntarily. We are aware of nothing in the present Rules of Court, statutes or the Constitution that prevents it from doing so.