Opinion ID: 2359432
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Denial of stays pending appeal

Text: Finally, the Committee alleges that Judge Benoit violated the Code of Judicial Conduct in three cases by denying the defendants' motions for stay of sentence pending appeal. Those denials may have involved judicial error, but they were not instances of judicial misconduct.
On the evidence before us, we find the following facts. In District Court (Skowhegan) defendant Russell Johnston entered a plea of guilty to a charge of criminal OUI on August 29, 1983. On that date, Judge Benoit accepted Johnston's guilty plea, continued the case for sentencing until September 19, and released Johnston on personal recognizance. On September 19, 1983, Judge Benoit sentenced Johnston to serve 30 days in jail and to pay a $500 fine, and suspended his license. Johnston's attorney immediately filed a notice of appeal with Judge Benoit and requested a stay of execution of the jail sentence pending the appeal. The judge denied the requested stay. District Court Criminal Rule 38 provides: A sentence of imprisonment shall be stayed if an appeal is taken and the defendant is admitted to bail pending appeal. (Emphasis added) In this case it is beyond question that the appeal was taken, but Johnston was not admitted to bail after the imposition of sentence. District Court Criminal Rule 46 governs bail and provides in part: The defendant . . . may be admitted to bail after conviction and pending appeal. . . . (Emphasis added) Although Judge Benoit continued bail after the guilty plea, that freedom ended when the judge sentenced Johnston to jail. No later bail was ever set. Thus, Johnston was not on bail when his appeal was taken, and one condition for the stay under Rule 38 was not met. Moreover, a District Court judge would not be obviously wrong in concluding that District Court Criminal Rule 46(a) leaves to his discretion whether to grant bail pending appeal. The previous Superior Court Criminal Rule 46(a), which was identical in language to the present District Court Criminal Rule 46(a), was so interpreted by our primary Maine treatise on criminal procedure. [18] As to the standard to be applied by the trial judge in exercising that discretion, that treatise states: Generally, bail pending appeal need not be allowed if the appeal is not taken in good faith or is frivolous. [19] As applied to the Johnston case before Judge Benoit, the defendant had plead guilty and so had very limited grounds upon which to base an appeal. The 30-day sentence fell within the range allowed by law, and thus Judge Benoit could well view it as very unlikely that Johnston's appeal would succeed. In these circumstances, Judge Benoit's denial of the motion for a stay of Johnston's jail term was not conduct that a reasonably prudent and competent judge would consider obviously and seriously wrong.
On the evidence before us, we find the following facts. On May 26, 1982, defendant Everett Hall plead guilty in District Court (Skowhegan) to criminal charges of disorderly conduct and assault. For the disorderly conduct conviction, Judge Benoit sentenced Hall to pay a $300 fine by June 21, 1982, and for the assault conviction, sentenced him to serve eight days, on four consecutive weekends, in the county jail and pay a $300 fine by July 19, 1982. According to the District Court records, the bail set at the time of Hall's arrest was continued beyond sentencing only as to the disorderly conduct charge. Hall appealed and moved to stay the jail sentence and the fines. Judge Benoit denied the motion. The actions of Judge Benoit in this case do not rise to the level of a sanctionable violation of Canon 3 A(1). Examining the refusal to stay the jail sentence on the assault conviction, we note that Judge Benoit did not admit Hall to bail after sentencing in that case, and thus, as in State v. Johnston, one condition for stay pending appeal under Rule 38 was not met. In reviewing the failure to grant a stay of execution of the fines, we are faced with unsettled issues of interpretation of the rules of criminal procedure that Judge Benoit now argues permitted his action. The District Court and the Superior Court have separate sets of criminal rules. However, some District Court rules provide that procedure in the District Court will be governed by the corresponding Superior Court rule. District Court Criminal Rule 38, controlling stays of execution of payment of fines, is such a rule. Most of the Superior court rules incorporated into the District Court rules make reference to actions to be taken by the court. As applied in the District Court, the court plainly means the District Court. However, Superior Court Rule 38(b), incorporated into District Court Rule 38, states that in specified circumstances: A sentence to pay a fine . . . shall be stayed by the Superior Court. . . . Without here deciding the proper interpretation of the pertinent rules, we do recognize the existence of some question whether anyone other than a Superior Court judge could stay the execution of a District Court fine pending appeal. Thus, we cannot say that Judge Benoit's denial of the stays of the fines in State v. Hall was conduct that a reasonably prudent and competent judge would consider obviously and seriously wrong.
On the evidence before us, we find the following facts. In District Court (Skowhegan) on September 28, 1983, defendant Donald Greene admitted a charge that he had committed the civil traffic infraction of speeding. On the same day Judge Benoit sentenced him to pay a $120 fine and suspended his driver's license for 60 days. On October 4, 1983, Greene filed a notice of appeal and a request for a stay of execution of the license suspension based on District Court Civil Rule 62. Judge Benoit denied the request, stating, [The appeal] is interposed for delay only. Several days later the Superior Court entered an order staying the execution of the license suspension pending appeal. On the merits of that appeal, the Superior Court affirmed the District Court decision, but gave Greene a credit of seven days on his license suspension for that period in which defendant's license suspension should have been stayed. District Court Civil Rule 62(e), which is made applicable to civil traffic infraction cases by Rule 80F(a) of the District Court Civil Rules, provides in part: [T]he taking of an appeal from a judgment shall operate as a stay of execution upon the judgment during the pendency of the appeal.... The District Court Civil Rules thus declare that the filing of a notice of appeal in a civil case, such as State v. Greene, operates automatically to stay execution upon the judgment, without any judicial action. When Greene's attorney asked Judge Benoit to order a stay pending appeal, he sought a meaningless and needless act and implied by his request that he believed Judge Benoit had discretion in the matter. We cannot say in these circumstances that a reasonably prudent and competent judge would consider Judge Benoit's reaction to the request to be obviously and seriously wrong.