Opinion ID: 1205480
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The petition and opinion and writ issued pursuant thereto constituted invalid attempts to require judges to recuse or disqualify themselves and thereby accomplish the reversal of the rulings of the Whitehead court.

Text: Petitioner Del Papa, by the extraordinary means of filing a petition against the duly-constituted majority of the Whitehead court, sought to force the disqualification of those justices in order to have the justices who were disqualified in the Whitehead case join with the lone dissenting justice in Whitehead to nullify critical rulings issued by the constitutionally constituted Whitehead court. We need only mention here that despite Del Papa's protestations to the contrary, the relief sought and purportedly obtained in Case No. 27847 applies strictly to the Whitehead case, that is, Case No. 24598. It is patently clear that Case No. 27847 was filed under a new docket number in an attempt to avoid such doctrines as law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel, and the problem of having two disqualified justices in Case No. 24598 participate in interfering with and overruling critical aspects of the case in which they are disqualified. In every respect, however, Case No. 27847 represents an improper act of judicial manipulation calculated to oust the court of jurisdiction in Case No. 24598 in order to overrule judgments in that case that are not well received by the attorney general or the three justices. In the first effort to infuse an appearance of legitimacy to their position, the three justices vainly sought to obtain two additional district court judges to sit with them on Case No. 27847 by representing to the governor that Justices Steffen and Springer had disqualified themselves in the new case. After Justice Springer disabused the governor of that representation in writing, the three justices then simply, without any formal, adversarial proceeding, declared Justices Steffen and Springer, as named respondents in Case No. 27847, disqualified. Under normal circumstances, of course, their conclusion would be correct. But since they were attempting to oust Chief Justice Steffen and Justice Springer of their lawful jurisdiction in Case No. 24598 by means of a new case number, their attempt was without question unlawful and invalid. We first observe that Petitioner Del Papa, an active participant in Case No. 24598 prior to her removal, named as respondents only those members of the Whitehead court who had ruled contrary to the strident positions which she took in that case. Not named, noticed, or allowed to participate, were Petitioner Jerry Carr Whitehead, the Discipline Commission and several amici. Former Judge Whitehead, of course, stands to lose the most from the actions of Del Papa and the three justices as he expended substantial legal resources in order to achieve at least a form of justice in the Whitehead case. Justice Shearing, the lone dissenter in the Whitehead case, was, of course, not named as a respondent. The Arizona Supreme Court, in In re Ronwin, 139 Ariz. 576, 680 P.2d 107, cert. denied, 464 U.S. 977, 104 S.Ct. 413, 78 L.Ed.2d 351 (1983), observed, in agreement with a ruling by the Ninth Circuit, that: [T]he mere fact that a judge has been sued by reason of his rulings in a case does not require recusal. Nor can the fact that all judges in the court have been sued require recusal. To honor such a technique would be to put the weapon of disqualification in the hands of the most unscrupulous. Id. 680 P.2d at 117. Other numerous cases, only certain of which we will cite here, have made it abundantly clear that Petitioner Del Papa's attempt to oust the Whitehead majority of their jurisdiction in Case No. 24598 and supplant them with the three justices is unlawful. In Commonwealth v. Leventhal, 364 Mass. 718, 307 N.E.2d 839 (1974), the court held that: [A] party cannot disqualify a judge to sit in his case by bringing an action against him after the principal suit is commenced. Nor is a judge disqualified because he is made a formal party as a method of seeking review of his rulings; to be disqualifying, the bias and prejudice must rise from an extrajudicial source and not from something learned from participation in the case. Id. 307 N.E.2d at 841 (citations omitted). Again, it has been held that [a]dverse rulings against the defendant in the same or a prior judicial proceeding do not render the judge biased. In addition, a judge is not disqualified merely because a litigant sues or threatens suit. In re Hipp, Inc., 5 F.3d 109, 116 (5th Cir.1993) (footnote omitted). In United States v. Studley, 783 F.2d 934, 939 (9th Cir.1986), the court held that [t]he alleged prejudice must result from an extrajudicial source; a judge's prior adverse ruling is not sufficient cause for recusal. The court further held that [a] judge is not disqualified by a litigant's suit or threatened suit against him or by a litigant's intemperate and scurrilous attacks. Id. at 940 (citation omitted); see also United States v. Grismore, 564 F.2d 929, 933 (10th Cir.1977) (A judge is not disqualified merely because a litigant sues or threatens to sue him), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 954, 98 S.Ct. 1586, 55 L.Ed.2d 806 (1978); Andersen v. Roszkowski, 681 F.Supp. 1284, 1289 (N.D.Ill.1988) (where apparent that plaintiffs had no legitimate basis for suing the judge and did so because of judge's prior dismissal of plaintiff's complaint, there is no basis for disqualification, which would permit plaintiffs to manipulate the identity of the decisionmaker and to engage in `judge-shopping'), aff'd, 894 F.2d 1338 (7th Cir.1990). In the case of Jones v. City of Buffalo, 867 F.Supp. 1155 (W.D.N.Y.1994), the court stated: [I]t is apparent that Jones employs a litigation tactic by which he moves for disqualification or recusal of any judge who has or Jones believes will rule against him. . . . . . . . In my view, this tactic of suing federal judges and then seeking their disqualification is nothing more than a tactic to delay and frustrate the orderly administration of justice. Judges should not be held hostage to this kind of tactic and automatically recuse themselves simply because they or their fellow judges on the court are named defendants in a truly meritless lawsuit. Id. at 1162-63 (quoting with approval Jones v. City of Buffalo, No. 89-1088 (W.D.N.Y. March 20, 1990) (order denying motion to recuse)). The Supreme Court of Kansas, in response to an attempt to disqualify the members of that court in State v. Rome, 235 Kan. 642, 685 P.2d 290, 296 (1984), held that [w]e are charged [by Kansas law] with supervision of the practice of law. To permit the filing of a suit against members of this court to disqualify them from discharging that statutory duty would nullify it and permit manipulation of the court. Finally, then-Justice Rehnquist, in denying a motion to disqualify him for, inter alia, having made public statements concerning principles of law that were not favorable to the movants' position, stated that [t]hose federal courts of appeals that have considered the matter have unanimously concluded that a federal judge has a duty to sit where not disqualified which is equally as strong as the duty to not sit where disqualified.  Laird v. Tatum, 409 U.S. 824, 837, 93 S.Ct. 7, 15, 34 L.Ed.2d 50 (Rehnquist, J. 1972) (citations omitted). The distillate of both the law and facts involving the present attempt to disqualify the majority of the Whitehead court and to enter an opinion adverse to the rulings of the Whitehead panel, without its participation, is that the petition and action by the three justices are void as an unlawful attempt to manipulate the Whitehead court out of its rightful jurisdiction to act. Petitioner's remedy, while acting as counsel for the Commission, was to petition the Whitehead court for rehearing in an effort to cause the court to alter its position. As petitioner Del Papa stated in her writ petition, the issues raised by her under Case No. 27847 have long since been settled in a legitimate case and controversy. These issues cannot now be overruled through the means employed by the attorney general and the three justices. (2) Justices who recused themselves in the Whitehead case may not now reverse their disqualification or recusal by ruling on the petition filed as Case No. 27847 and thereby overrule decisions of the case and controversy (Case No. 24598) in which they were disqualified to act. Every federal appellate court that has ruled on the problem of a recused judge attempting to reenter a case and participate in any form of adjudication or matter other than that of a strictly ministerial nature, such as transferring a case to another judge, has ruled any decision or order of such judge to be void. In the case of Aetna Life Insurance Co. v. Lavoie, 475 U.S. 813, 827-28, 106 S.Ct. 1580, 1588, 89 L.Ed.2d 823 (1986), the court stated that we are aware of no case, and none has been called to our attention, permitting a court's decision to stand when a disqualified judge casts the deciding vote. Here, of course, we have two disqualified justices casting the deciding votes without even the slightest attempt to cite authority supporting their right to participate in an original petition calculated to overrule critical aspects of the very case in which they are both disqualified to sit. In the case of Moody v. Simmons, 858 F.2d 137, 143 (3d Cir.1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1078, 109 S.Ct. 1529, 103 L.Ed.2d 835 (1989), the court held that [o]nce a judge has disqualified himself, he or she may enter no further orders in the case. Indeed, the Moody court even vacated an order that was not challenged by either party in the case. The Fourth Circuit, in Arnold v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 712 F.2d 899 (4th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1040, 104 S.Ct. 703, 79 L.Ed.2d 168 (1984), held that: Patently a judge who is disqualified from acting must not be able to affect the determination of any cause from which he is barred. . . . . However, should he, or any other regular active member of the court, recuse or disqualify himself at any time, he is out of service insofar as that particular case is concerned. To disqualify means to debar legally. That is synonymous with lack of legal capacity, i.e., with inability to serve. Id. at 904 (citation omitted) (footnote omitted). The Arnold court, with particular application to what has transpired with the two disqualified justices in the instant matter, also held that: [T]he logic is badly frayed inasmuch as it is assumed that a recused judge would vote on whether a case should be heard or reheard en banc even though disqualified from voting on the merits. The Fourth Circuit has simply not operated in that fashion, and we do not perceive how a disqualified judge could do so without infringing the rule that he should take no action which would possibly affect the outcome of a case. To count as a vote his non-vote might well be decisive as to whether the case would be reheard. Id. at 905 (footnote omitted). In an earlier effort to interfere with the course of Case No. 24598, the two disqualified justices, in alliance with the dissenting justice, adopted a rule that purports to prevent the chief justice from requesting replacements on a given case from the governor without the prior approval of a majority of the elected members of the court. This was done in order to entice the governor not to appoint the requested replacements on the Whitehead court that were necessitated by the retirement of the district judge appointed by then-Chief Justice Rose, and the desired replacement of a senior justice whose family health difficulties caused him to seek relief from his assignment in the Whitehead case (and who now simply refuses to participate further in the Whitehead case). This represented but another unlawful and deliberate attempt to affect the court's rulings and capacity to rule in the Whitehead case. Stringer v. United States, 233 F.2d 947, 948 (9th Cir.1956), held that after disqualification, judges are confined to performing only the mechanical duties of transferring the case to another judge or other essential ministerial duties short of adjudication. See also El Fenix de Puerto Rico v. The M/Y Johanny, 36 F.3d 136, 142 (1st Cir.1994) (general rule that recused judge should take no further action except to enable administrative reassignment of the case; therefore, it was error for recused judge to set aside final judgment simultaneously with recusal order); Moody, 858 F.2d at 143-44 (if a judge adjudicates any issue after his recusal, that order is void); McCuin v. Texas Power & Light Co., 714 F.2d 1255, 1260-61 (5th Cir.1983) (disqualification cannot be waived; disqualified chief judge prohibited from selecting judge who would handle case in which chief judge is disqualified because of statutory law and the creation of suspicion that chief judge would select successor whose views were consistent with his); Gubler v. Commission on Judicial Performance, 37 Cal.3d 27, 207 Cal.Rptr. 171, 187-88, 688 P.2d 551, 567-68 (1984) (Since petitioner was disqualified under [California law] from hearing the fee-setting issue, it was highly improper for him to give unsolicited advice to another judicial officer on how to decide it); Bolt v. Smith, 594 So.2d 864, 864 (Fla.Ct.App.1992) (Florida case law is well settled that once a trial judge has recused himself, further orders of the recused judge are void and have no effect); State v. Evans, 187 Ga.App. 649, 371 S.E.2d 432, 433 (1988) (A disqualified judge can take no judicial action in the case and any attempt at such action is a mere nullity); Ferguson v. Pony Express Courier Corp., 898 S.W.2d 128, 130 (Mo.Ct.App.1995) (It is true that a judge who disqualifies himself or who has been disqualified by one of the parties has no further right to hear the case); State ex rel. Johnson v. Mehan, 731 S.W.2d 887, 888 (Mo.Ct.App.1987) (Once a change of judge has been entered and the case transferred to another judge the disqualified judge has no further authority in the case and any orders made after the disqualification are void); Byrd v. Brown, 613 S.W.2d 695, 699-700 (Mo.Ct.App.1981) (Judge Moore's disqualification was effective upon the docket entry and the case was transferred to Judge Northern. Judge Moore had no further authority in the case. Therefore, the orders made after the initial docket entry of disqualification ... were void) (footnotes omitted); Pueblo of Laguna v. Cillessen & Son, Inc., 101 N.M. 341, 682 P.2d 197, 199 (1984) (Since the district court was properly disqualified, it had power only to perform mere formal acts subsequent to the disqualification. After the affidavit of disqualification was filed, the judge had no jurisdiction to act in matters involving the exercise of his discretion. Its subsequent consolidation order was therefore without legal effect) (citations omitted); State v. Nossaman, 63 Or.App. 789, 666 P.2d 1351, 1355 (1983) (A judgment entered by a judge who has been disqualified in the manner prescribed in the statute is void); and McElwee v. McElwee, 911 S.W.2d 182, 186 (Tex.Ct. App.1995) (If a judge is disqualified under the Texas Constitution, he is without jurisdiction to hear the case, and therefore, any judgment he renders is void and a nullity). The authorities are uniform, indeed it is black letter law that a disqualified judge may not issue any orders or rulings other than of a housekeeping nature in a case in which he or she is disqualified. The two disqualified justices in the instant case cannot be allowed to avoid the effect of their disqualification and the law by simply suggesting that they are not sitting on or otherwise affecting Case No. 24598. Indeed, the entire thrust of their opinion and writ issued on April 25, 1996 is directed to the final decisions of the Whitehead case in which they are disqualified. It was disingenuous to the extreme, in an order issued by the three justices on March 15, 1996 in Case No. 27847, to state that [i]t is obvious that this case is not the same case as Whitehead v. Comm'n on Jud. Discipline, Docket No. 24598. Both the parties and the issues in the two cases are different. This blatant misrepresentation is readily refuted by simply comparing the two cases. The thrust of Case No. 27847 and the ruling of the three justices is that the orders of confidentiality and the appointment of the special master in the Whitehead case were invalid. These are the identical issues that were resolved by final judgment in the Whitehead case. Moreover, it is equally disingenuous to state that the parties are different simply because the attorney general filed a collateral writ petition naming the majority of the Whitehead court as respondents. If this type of jurisprudence were recognized by any court as valid, it would invite the same outrageous maneuvering that has occurred in the instant case, and finality could never be safely reached. As we will later note, the two disqualified justices have displayed such disregard for the law and judicial norms that they have even gone to the length of issuing a writ that is absolutely unavailable as a remedy against the constitutional panel of the same court. The only court having the power to issue such a writ of prohibition is the United States Supreme Court.