Opinion ID: 2600337
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Summary of Position on Removal from Office

Text: In short, by choosing to submit the Council's questionnaire, a judge ultimately causes to be filed with the Division an evaluation by the Council that officially confirms the judge to be a declared retention candidate and evaluates the judge's qualifications as a candidate. When timely filed before the August 1 deadline, the Council's evaluation meets the statutory requirement for a timely declaration filed by the judge with the Division. And because it supplies all information required by the Division's declaration form, the Council's evaluation also substantially complies with the Division's required form. Finally, accepting the Council's evaluation as a properly filed declaration does not undermine any purpose or goal of the statutory declaration requirement; nor does it treat judges differently than other candidates except insofar as the law governing the judicial retention process provides for different treatment. In my view, under these circumstances, the judges' failure to strictly comply with the Division's required declaration form did not warrant their disqualification from the ballot. Accordingly, I disagree with the court's decision removing the judges from the bench. In my view, removal is unnecessary as a matter of law, unsound as a practical matter, and disserves the interests of justice and voters alike. Despite widespread publicity concerning the judges' violations and despite the heavily publicized legal controversy generated by their conduct, the electorate voted to retain both judges by margins that fell solidly within the norm received by other judges on the same ballot. Removing these judges from the bench will nullify the clear intent of a fully informed electorate. At the same time it will deprive the people of Alaska of a resource not easily replaced: the judges' knowledge, experience, training, and judgment. Removal will also needlessly force the court system and the state to absorb the cost and disruption of recruiting, appointing, and training new judgesall in the name of strict compliance. Yet strict compliance is not a goal in itself. And it can serve no purpose as a remedy for inattentive conduct that, by systemic design, had no substantive consequencesand apparently never caused a shred of actual doubt about the judges' intentions to run for retention.