Opinion ID: 1188955
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Second Ground: The Attorney General's Conflict of Interest.

Text: Amici (Ad Hoc Committee for the Preservation of an Independent Judiciary) argue that the involvement of the Attorney General in the disciplinary process creates hopeless conflicts of interest and roles and that such involvement creates an untoward and undesirable opportunity for undue influence upon the judiciary. We examine this argument carefully. First we look at the potential for abuse inherent in any involvement by the Attorney General in the disciplinary process. As we held in Whitehead I, the Commission is part of the Judicial Department. See Whitehead v. Comm'n on Jud. Discipline, 110 Nev. 128, 159, 869 P.2d 795, 814 (1994). The rules this court has adopted pursuant to its constitutional mandate provide a clear requirement of confidentiality at least until after a probable cause hearing, a finding of probable cause, and the filing of a formal statement of charges. ARJD 5(1). It is not difficult to see the possibilities that exist if the Attorney General is allowed to participate in the Commission's disciplinary activities. If the Attorney General has free access to the confidential information in possession of the Commission, the temptation is clearly present for putting adverse, confidential information about a judge to improper and even political use. Anonymous leaks or threats of leaks could very well provide those with improper access to confidential information about judges considerable leverage over sitting judges, who, in our elective system, are always faced with the possibility of a contested election. Although we are not suggesting the existence of such implications in the present case, there is certainly a potential for an Attorney General who has adverse information relating to a judge to use this information to damage the career of any judicial officer that is seen as a political threat to the Attorney General or to his or her political allies or political agenda. The Attorney General's office, as now constituted, has close to one hundred attorneys who appear in many courts of this state. It is not difficult to see how the independence of judges might be compromised if a judge before whom a deputy attorney general was appearing felt threatened by the Attorney General's possession of confidential information, whether true or not, that might be harmful to the judge if released to the public. The threat just described is only one of the possible conflicts presented by allowing the Attorney General to participate in the judicial discipline process. Another conflict is presented by the fact that the Attorney General is the official legal representative of the judges and justices in this state and cannot, by the nature of that office engage in the prosecution of the very judges that the Attorney General represents as counsel. [10] It is not the foregoing conflicts, however, that give us the most pause. The most dangerous conflict lies in the Attorney General's acting as both legal counsellor to the Commission and as prosecutor of judicial discipline complaints. Special Deputy Attorney General Campbell has been acting in the role of investigator and prosecutor in this case. The Attorney General apparently sees nothing untoward or unusual about Special Deputy Attorney General Campbell's acting in such capacities in this case, as the Attorney General freely tells us that her office has investigated and processed literally dozens of [other] judicial misconduct complaints over the years. Petition for Rehearing at 7. Such engagement by the Attorney General in the investigation and prosecution of judges is not only a violation of the separation of powers doctrine of our Constitution, it is a conflict of interest for the Attorney General to be prosecuting before the Commission the very judges that she represents as counsel, and before whom she appears in the course of prosecuting criminal and civil cases. Again, of equally great concern is the conflict created by the Attorney General's acting as either prosecutor or legal advisor to the judicial tribunal. It cannot be denied that the Attorney General has been acting as legal advisor to the Commission while investigations and prosecutorial activities were being conducted by that office against Petitioner Whitehead. Ordinarily, a client's regular consultation with his or her attorney, by the nature of the relationship, tends to instill feelings of trust and confidence and, frequently, friendship as between the client and the attorney. Most readers of this opinion should not have to be further convinced that it is simply not fair to require an accused judge or justice to appear before a tribunal where the judge's prosecutor is also acting as legal counsel to the tribunal. In our adversarial system we have always been scrupulous about keeping adjudicative functions separate from the prosecutive function, and fairness requires that we continue to do so. The proposed changes to the American Bar Association's Model Rules for Judicial Disciplinary Enforcement deal quite extensively with this problem. The Report and Recommendation to the ABA House of Delegates strongly recommends the separation of conflicting functions. Thus [a] commission member who participates in the investigation should not participate in the adjudicative process and vice versa. Similarly, the proposed Model Rules also envision separate counsel for the Commission: One attorney (disciplinary counsel) would assist the Commission in performing its investigative and prosecutorial functions, another (commission counsel) would provide the Commission with legal research, drafting, and advice. The report observes that the roles of prosecutor and advisor are inconsistent and ought not be embodied in a single person, because such a separation of functions is crucial to the perception of fairness. The report also notes that [a] system that relies on other government agencies to investigate complaints or present evidence, or both, loses efficiency and endangers confidentiality, concluding that [d]isciplinary counsel should not use law enforcement officials or staff to investigate complaints or present cases.... Their use could compromise the confidentiality of investigations and could pose separation of powers problems. [11] The conflicts envisioned by the ABA have manifested themselves all too clearly in the manner in which cases are currently being handled by the Commission. As noted in Whitehead II, the Attorney General and the Commission have had at least one judge under some kind of supervisory control or probation, which requires the judge to report to the Attorney General's Office under penalty of more severe disciplinary action in the event the probation fails. This supervision is going on while the Attorney General's staff is presumably still trying cases before the supervised judge. 110 Nev. at ___, 873 P.2d at 971. This is a clear conflict of interest. Obviously, the Attorney General or the district attorneys over whom she has supervisory control, appear in an adversarial setting before the very judges she is investigating or is supervising under probation. Again, given the current rules of confidentiality surrounding judicial discipline matters prior to a finding of probable cause, it is inevitable that some members of the Attorney General's and district attorneys' staffs will appear before judges while in possession of damaging and confidential information about those judges. This may compromise the appearance of an impartial tribunal. [12] The Commission has asserted that if this court does not allow the Attorney General to act as Commission counsel, the Commission will be unable to fulfill its constitutional function. This rather extravagant assertion may be rejected out-of-hand because the rules clearly contemplate that the Commission may employ independent counsel. ARJD 41; Nevada Const. art. 6 § 21(9)(a). We also reject the Commission's argument that this court will violate the Commission's right to counsel of its choice and thereby deny the Commission due process of law if it determines that the Attorney General may not act as she has in this proceeding. Even if we were to assume that a public body has some identifiable legal right to counsel of its choice, such a right would not include the Commission's right to be represented by counsel with the clear conflict of interest problems that are discussed in this Opinion; and, certainly such a right could not be sufficient to overcome the separation of powers clause of the Nevada Constitution. See Kabase v. District Court, 96 Nev. 471, 611 P.2d 194 (1980). The separation of powers clause of the Nevada Constitution prohibits the Attorney General from acting as prosecutor of judges in judicial discipline cases and from acting as the Commission's counsel in disciplinary matters. We have, of course, already held that the Attorney General may issue official opinions to the Commission and that the Attorney General may supply[ ] the Commission with abstract advice on an occasional basis.... Whitehead I, 110 Nev. at 133 n. 5, 869 P.2d at 798 n. 5. However, this certainly does not mean that the Attorney General can advise the Commission in matters relating to judicial discipline nor that the Attorney General can act as prosecutor, prosecuting judicial discipline complaints before the Commission. What is painfully clear, as mentioned previously, is that the Attorney General may not be allowed to act as either advisor or prosecutor. [13]