Court Opinion

ID: 9539633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:07:29.436908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:17.119949
License: Public Domain

Special Tribunal of the Supreme Court of the State of Colorado
                 2 East 14th Avenue • Denver, Colorado 80203

                                    2023 CO 44

                     Supreme Court Case No. 23SA114
                      Original Proceeding in Discipline
          Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline Case No. 21-118

                         In the Matter of Complainant:

                      The People of the State of Colorado,

                                       and

                                    Respondent:

    Nathan B. Coats, a Former Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.

     Order re: Recommendation of the Colorado Commission on Judicial
                     Discipline and Public Censure
                                 en banc
                             August 7, 2023

Appearing for the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline:
Christopher Gregory, Executive Director
      Denver, Colorado

Attorneys for Respondent:
Burns, Figa & Will, PC
John S. Gleason
Alec Rothrock
      Greenwood Village, Colorado

Attorneys for Complainant:
Rathod Mohamedbhai, LLC
Qusair Mohamedbhai
Omeed Azmoudeh
    Denver, Colorado

PER CURIAM

CHIEF JUSTICE BOATRIGHT, JUSTICE MÁRQUEZ, JUSTICE HOOD,
JUSTICE GABRIEL, JUSTICE HART, JUSTICE SAMOUR, and JUSTICE
BERKENKOTTER did not participate.
¶ 1       Former Chief Justice Nathan B. Coats, you appear before the Special Tribunal

 of the Colorado Supreme Court (“the Special Tribunal”) for imposition of discipline

 based on violations of the duties of your office as a Justice of the Colorado Supreme

 Court. The Special Tribunal was convened because the Supreme Court was

 required to recuse itself in this matter under Rule 41(b) of the Colorado Rules of

 Judicial Discipline (“RJD”).

¶2        The Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline (“the Commission”)

 recommends approval of the Amended Stipulation for Public Censure (“the Amended

 Stipulation”), which you and the Commission executed pursuant to RJD 37(e).

¶3        Consistent with the Amended Stipulation, the Commission recommends that

 the Special Tribunal issue a public censure. The Special Tribunal adopts this

 recommendation.

                                  I.     Stipulated Facts

¶4        In the Amended Stipulation, you and the Commission agreed to the following

 facts:

                1. In 2000, Justice Coats was appointed to the Colorado
                Supreme Court, where he served as an Associate Justice
                until he became the Chief Justice on June 30, 2018. As
                provided by the Colorado Constitution, “the supreme
                court select(s) a chief justice from its own membership to
                serve at the pleasure of a majority of the court, who shall
                be the executive head of the judicial system.” Colo. Const.
                Art. VI, sec. 5(2).

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2. Also by constitutional mandate, the Supreme Court
appoints a State Court Administrator, Colo. Const. Art. VI,
sec. 5(3), who by statute is responsible to the supreme
court and who, in addition to the other duties dictated by
the legislature, is directed to perform the duties assigned
to him by the chief justice and the supreme court. Sec. 13-
3-101(1), C.R.S. The State Court Administrator is also
directed by statute to employ such other personnel as the
Supreme Court deems necessary to aid the administration
of the courts. Sec. 13-3-101(2), C. R. S.

3. In or around August of 2018, Justice Coats was briefed
by Christopher T. Ryan, the State Court Administrator, of
allegations that Mindy Masias, the Chief of Staff and
second in command of the State Court Administrator’s
Office (“SCAO”), who had narrowly failed in her bid to be
appointed State Court Administrator in the previous year,
had falsified the date of an invoice in connection with a
request for reimbursement for two chairs purchased for
the Judicial Department rather than simply refiling her
request on forms for the next fiscal year, as ordered by the
SCAO Controller. Justice Coats also learned there was no
apparent financial gain in Masias’s decision to falsify the
date of the invoice, given that she would have been
entitled to the reimbursement with or without falsification.

4. Around the same time, Justice Coats, Ryan, and Andrew
J. Rottman, Counsel to the Chief Justice, determined that if
the allegations were true, appropriate discipline could
depend upon whether this was an isolated incident of
dishonesty or part of a pattern of misconduct. To that end,
they decided that an independent employment
investigator should be retained to determine whether
Masias had actually falsified the date of the invoice, and
that Masias’s past requests for reimbursement should be
audited to determine whether this was an isolated case of
dishonesty or part of a pattern of misconduct.

5. David Powell of the law firm of Ogletree Deakins was
retained to conduct the independent investigation
                             2
regarding the falsified invoice and ultimately concluded
that, in the absence of direct evidence, he could not find
that Masias altered the invoice in question. At the same
time, however, he could not find any evidence to support
her account of initially returning the items and therefore
having received multiple invoices. Notwithstanding
Powell’s findings, Justice Coats personally concluded that
it appeared likely that Masias had in fact falsified the
invoice and then continued lying to Powell and SCAO
officials to avoid admitting her earlier dishonesty.

6. Tracey Griffith, a member of the SCAO’s internal audit
staff, produced a memorandum summarizing a broader
audit of select requests for reimbursement by Masias,
which identified a number of irregularities in Masias’s past
requests for reimbursement. When expressly queried by
Justice Coats, Ryan represented to him and Rottman that
the audit had revealed nothing beyond minor errors.
Justice Coats asserts that he only learned of the existence of
the Griffith memo much later, well after Ryan had
resigned.

7. However, on October 5, 2018, Ryan forwarded Justice
Coats an email describing the significant negative impact
of Masias’s conduct on the financial controls of the Judicial
Department. The email referenced Griffith’s memo as
evidence. Justice Coats made no further inquiry into the
email or Griffith’s memo, an inquiry which may have
resulted in his or Rottman’s review of additional findings
regarding Masias. Indeed, when shown the email much
later, Justice Coats acknowledged receiving it but recalled
nothing of its contents. Justice Coats stated that had he
seen Griffith’s memo earlier, he likely would have decided
that Masias would be unfit to work for the Judicial
Department in any capacity.

8. Justice Coats recalls that, weighing in favor of Masias’s
fitness to continue work for the Judicial Department, Ryan
made clear that Masias was very important to his ability to
function as State Court Administrator, in large part
                              3
because of her experience and long-standing relationships
with the chief judges and leadership teams throughout the
state. According to Justice Coats, although not typical of
personnel matters, considering Masias’s high rank in the
SCAO, various disciplinary remedies were discussed with
Justice Coats, who kept the full Supreme Court apprised of
the investigation and options under consideration.

9. During this same period, the SCAO was undergoing the
Annual Financial and Compliance Audit conducted by the
Office of the State Auditor (“OSA”). While discussions
continued concerning appropriate discipline for Masias,
Ryan reported to Justice Coats that the Financial Services
Division would refuse to sign off on the audit unless
Masias’s employment was terminated. Ryan also
discussed with Justice Coats the enmity between members
of the Financial Services Division and Masias.
Representing that Masias’s continued employment with
the SCAO would therefore place him in an untenable
position, Ryan nevertheless suggested that Masias could
still serve an important role with the Judicial Department
as an independent contractor serving in a teaching and
coordinating capacity. In response, and after consultation
with the full Supreme Court, Justice Coats indicated that if
no misconduct by Masias beyond the falsification of the
invoice came to light, the Court would consider such a role
— Justice Coats understood that if other misconduct by
Masias did come to light, the Supreme Court had the
authority to foreclose consideration of Masias for any such
contract. If the Supreme Court objected to any such
contract, and Ryan disregarded the Supreme Court’s
direction, the Supreme Court would be constitutionally
empowered to remove Ryan from office.

10. On November 7, 2018, with Justice Coats’s knowledge
and approval, Ryan therefore presented Masias with a
Notice of Disciplinary Decision. The Notice described
Masias’s falsification of records and subsequent
dishonesty as having “created a lack of trust” and as
having jeopardized “Judicial’s financial records and
                             4
systems” during the OSA Annual Audit. The Notice gave
Masias an ultimatum to resign by November 15, 2018 or be
terminated. Rather than choose either course of action,
Masias requested and was granted leave by Ryan under
the Family Medical Leave Act for a period of 12 weeks,
and later extended through March of 2019.

11. As part of the OSA’s Annual Audit, Justice Coats
signed off on a management representation letter dated
December 7, 2018, attesting to the Judicial Department’s
financial controls. Justice Coats did not require that this
compliance letter be amended, or take any other action, to
indicate to the OSA that the Judicial Department might
consider a post-resignation contract with Masias.

12. On December 14, 2018, at an unscheduled meeting with
Justice Coats attended by Rottman, Ryan, and Eric Brown,
the Director of Human Resources for SCAO, Brown
indicated that Masias felt her termination was unfair and
that she could raise prior incidents of misconduct or
discrimination by judges and staff resulting in lesser or no
punishment, which could put the Judicial Department in
an unfavorable light. Justice Coats recalled that, after
reciting three or four such allegations, which Justice Coats
asserts he discounted as obviously false or
inconsequential, Brown asked whether Justice Coats
wanted to hear any more. Justice Coats also recalled that
when Ryan failed to respond to Justice Coats’s inquiry
whether there was any reason for him to hear more, Justice
Coats simply told Brown he did not need to hear more
because such information would not affect his evaluation
of Masias. In conjunction with Masias’s apparent
complaint regarding unfair treatment and her medical
issues, Justice Coats recalls directing that Masias be
reassured that “nobody’s trying to hurt [Masias].” Others
recall these events differently. Justice Coats asserts that he
was not aware of the notes Brown was using at the
meeting, what the press later called the “Brown Memo,”
which referenced other allegations of discrimination or
undisciplined misconduct spanning more than 20 years.
                              5
Justice Coats further asserts that he and the rest of the
[Supreme] Court did not learn of the Brown Memo until
much later, after Ryan’s departure from the SCAO.

13. At that meeting, Brown subsequently raised the
question whether a training contract with Masias might
still be a possibility. Justice Coats again agreed that he and
the Supreme Court would consider approving such a
contract, so long as no additional misconduct by Masias
came to light.

14. Following that meeting, Justice Coats states that he was
concerned that Brown might proceed with Masias on his
own regarding a post-resignation contract. As a result,
Justice Coats left Rottman a voice message, which was
saved, instructing him to emphasize to Brown that he
could make no representations to Masias, and Justice
Coats recalls having similarly emphasized to Ryan in a
phone call that any future contract with Masias could be
entered into, if at all, only after she had resigned and only
if the contract could be executed in strict compliance with
all applicable statutes, rules, and departmental policies.

15. Justice Coats agreed to a recommendation from SCAO
staff that any contract to replace the fast-expiring existing
leadership training contract should be put out for bid via a
Request for Proposal (“RFP”). Justice Coats reports that as
Chief Justice, he had no role in the RFP and only later was
informed by Ryan that it had produced no bids and
therefore a sole source determination for a contract to
Masias was permissible. Several investigations have
uncovered improprieties underlying this RFP which are
beyond the scope of this [Amended] Stipulation.

16. On March 1, 2019, prior to Masias’s resignation, Justice
Coats was made aware that the hard drive on a M[ac]
laptop, for which Masias had received authorization to
conduct office business, had been corrupted such that no
information on it was recoverable. Although it was
explained to him that this could result from various
                              6
causes, and Justice Coats ordered further analysis, the
actual cause remains unexplained. Justice Coats believed
it possible that Masias, or someone acting on her behalf,
intentionally wiped the laptop to destroy evidence of
misconduct—but this belief did not cause Justice Coats to
reconsider contracting with Masias.

17. Throughout March of 2019, the SCAO legal staff
negotiated Masias’s separation agreement with Masias’s
attorney. Justice Coats asserts that as Chief Justice he was
not involved in these negotiations, did not see the
executed separation agreement until after Ryan’s
resignation, was not aware that Masias’s attorney had
unsuccessfully sought the promise of a training contract as
part of that agreement, and was not aware that Masias’s
attorney had successfully sought the promise of a post-
resignation meeting with Justice Coats regarding the
training contract as part of those negotiations. Masias’s
resignation became effective March 19, 2019. Had Justice
Coats personally reviewed the executed separation
agreement, he likely would have learned of Masias’s
surreptitious recording of former Chief Justice Nancy Rice,
information which would have (and eventually did) cause
him and the full Supreme Court to determine that a
contract with Masias was inappropriate.

18. On March 21, 2019, Justice Coats met with Masias,
Ryan, and Rottman in his chambers for discussion of
Justice Coats’s vision of the kind of training he considered
necessary for the different job categories in the Judicial
Department and a briefing on what kind of training
Masias was prepared to provide. After this meeting,
Justice Coats understood that the State Court
Administrator, acting on behalf of the Judicial Department,
would negotiate a contract with Masias.

19. On April 15, 2019, a month after signing her separation
agreement, Masias emailed the entire Judicial Department
that she was resigning as Chief of Staff due to a very
serious health condition. On the same day, Justice Coats
                             7
and the rest of the Supreme Court received an anonymous
letter alleging all manner of misconduct by Masias, as well
as Ryan, Brown, and David Kribs, Chief Financial Officer
of the SCAO. Justice Coats and the Supreme Court had
particular concerns about one allegation regarding a
separation agreement with an SCAO employee, which
included a lengthy period of administrative leave with
pay, as to which Justice Coats asserts neither he nor
anyone else on the Supreme Court had been made aware.
This employee had been accused of conducting improper
surveillance of personnel in the Carr Center, including
Masias and Brown. Specifically, the letter stated: “[This
employee] disappeared one day because she was watching
Mindy Masias and Eric Brown. She has been paid for
months to not disclose what she had.”

20. After discussing this letter with the Supreme Court,
Justice Coats therefore convened a meeting with Rottman,
Ryan, Brown, as well as Terri Morrison and Beth
Robinson, two members of the SCAO legal staff. Justice
Coats learned that Masias had structured and negotiated
the separation agreement with the employee, which was
then approved by Ryan. The separation agreement
included a non-disclosure provision. Justice Coats
considered the agreement outrageous, said it was one of
the “stupidest” things he had ever heard of, and was
outraged that the Supreme Court had not been informed.
Justice Coats demanded that in the future he be informed
of all but the most mundane personnel actions. Justice
Coats recalls that shortly after convening the meeting with
SCAO staff, there were additional concerns about the
allegation when Attorney General Phil Weiser called
Justice Coats to say that the Controller was raising a
similar allegation among employees in his office, that the
allegation appeared very serious, and that the allegation
warranted special attention. In response to direct
questioning, however, Justice Coats recalls Ryan assuring
him that the separation agreement may have been an
overly cautious attempt to prevent a lawsuit but was not
improper in any way. Justice Coats also recalls Morrison
                             8
advising him that the separation agreement itself did not
violate any applicable laws. Justice Coats therefore did not
consider these anonymous allegations sufficient to
foreclose consideration of Masias for the post-resignation
contract.

21. On May 16, 2018, Justice Coats received a written
notice from the OSA triggered by the April 15 anonymous
letter. The OSA’s notice advised Justice Coats that it had
received the anonymous letter and, by statute, all tips
concerning employment fraud require formal
investigation, which could be conducted either by the OSA
or the State Court Administrator. By letter dated May 29,
2019, Justice Coats advised the OSA that he and the
Supreme Court had received the anonymous letter, looked
into the allegations, and consulted with the Attorney
General. Justice Coats requested that the OSA conduct the
formal investigation.

22. Even though there existed allegations of serious
misconduct by Masias, the veracity of which were subject
to a barely begun formal OSA investigation, neither Justice
Coats nor the Supreme Court ordered a halt to the
consideration of Masias for a contract. Relatedly, when
responding to the OSA inquiry whether it or the SCAO
should conduct the investigation, Justice Coats did not
mention that the Judicial Department was also close to
finalizing a post-resignation contract with Masias.

23. Undisputed evidence reveals that Ryan, on behalf of
the Judicial Department, entered into a contract with
Masias on April 11, 2019, before the Judicial Department
received the anonymous letter. Justice Coats asserts he
had no knowledge of Ryan’s execution of the contract in
April. However, on June 3, 2019, with Justice Coats’s and
the Supreme Court’s knowledge, Ryan publicly signed the
same training contract on behalf of the Judicial
Department with Masias. The contract contemplated a
five-year arrangement with the Judicial Department
paying Masias between $2,660,000 and $2,750,000 with an
                             9
             allowance for Masias to seek additional reimbursement for
             pre-approved travel and other expenses. Because the
             contract, however, provided duties for only a single year,
             Justice Coats was assured by the SCAO legal staff, in
             writing, that the contract committed the Judicial
             Department to pay for Masias’s services for no more than
             that single year and was therefore a one-year contract.

             24. On July 15, 2019, Justice Coats personally learned for
             the first time that Masias had surreptitiously recorded a
             conversation with former Chief Justice Rice concerning the
             reasons she had not been chosen to be the State Court
             Administrator. In March 2019, Justice Coats was aware
             that Masias had signed a separation agreement with the
             Judicial Department. Had Justice Coats exercised due
             diligence by obtaining and reviewing the final separation
             agreement, he could have learned of the recording earlier,
             prior to the execution of the contract with Masias. After
             Justice Coats discussed the matter with the Supreme Court
             in July 2019, consensus was reached that a contract to
             teach judges could not be fulfilled by someone known to
             surreptitiously record them and that the Court no longer
             had confidence in Ryan. It was therefore agreed that the
             Judicial Department should withdraw from the contract
             and that Ryan should resign, both of which occurred in
             subsequent days.

                  II.   Stipulated Admissions to Judicial Misconduct

¶5     Former Chief Justice Coats failed to “perform judicial and administrative

 duties competently and diligently,” as required by Canon Rule 2.5(A) of the

 Colorado Code of Judicial Conduct. By allowing the Judicial Department to

 contract with the former Chief of Staff after she had resigned in lieu of termination

 from the SCAO, former Chief Justice Coats undermined the public’s confidence in

                                           10
 the integrity of the judiciary and failed to exercise diligence in the performance of

 his administrative duties.

¶6     That is, former Chief Justice Coats allowed the potentially multimillion-dollar

 contract to be awarded to an employee the Judicial Department had earlier been

 willing to terminate for falsifying an invoice, despite having set a standard that the

 contract would not go forward if additional causes for concern arose and having

 subsequently learned of strong circumstantial evidence of misconduct on Masias’s

 part that demonstrated dishonesty while she was still employed with the SCAO.

 That circumstantial evidence included the meeting about Masias’s “knowing some

 bad stuff” about the Judicial Department, Masias’s corrupted laptop, and Masias’s

 role in the surveillance-related separation agreement that Justice Coats considered

 outrageous and by which Masias was alleged to have used state funds to silence a

 witness to her own conduct. Particularly concerning is that former Chief Justice

 Coats was separately contacted by the Attorney General and the State Auditor to

 advise him of the need to investigate the April 15 letter’s allegations, which

 included Masias, but he did not notify the Attorney General or the OSA about the

 contemplated contract with a subject of the allegations. Nor did he await the results

 of the OSA’s formal investigation before approving the post-resignation contract

 with the person being investigated. Although former Chief Justice Coats

 authorized withdrawal from the contract immediately upon his learning of Masias’s

                                           11
 surreptitious recording of former Chief Justice Rice, compliance with the Colorado

 Code of Judicial Conduct required that former Chief Justice Coats prevent the

 Judicial Department from entering the contract prior to its public execution in June

 2019.

¶7       By way of mitigation, the Commission acknowledged that former Chief

 Justice Coats made many of these decisions with, or based on the representations

 and recommendations of, the State Court Administrator, fellow judicial officers,

 non-lawyer professionals, and lawyers.

                    III.   Stipulated Resolution of Formal Proceedings

¶8       RJD 37(e), titled “Stipulated Resolution of Formal Proceedings,” allows the

 Commission to file a “stipulated resolution” as a recommendation to the Special

 Tribunal in a disciplinary proceeding. In filing such a stipulation, the Commission

 has authority to recommend, among other possible sanctions, that the Special

 Tribunal “censure the [Justice] publicly . . . by written order.” RJD 36(e); accord Colo.

 Const. art. VI, § 23(3)(e).

¶9       Under RJD 40, after considering the evidence and the law, the Special

 Tribunal is required to issue a decision concerning the Commission’s

 recommendations. If the Commission recommends adoption of a stipulated

 resolution, “the [Special Tribunal] shall order it to become effective and issue any

 sanction provided in the stipulated resolution, unless the [Special Tribunal]

                                            12
  determines that its terms do not comply with Rule 37(e) or are not supported by the

  record of proceedings.” RJD 40.

¶ 10    By the Amended Stipulation, former Chief Justice Coats waived his right to a

  hearing in formal proceedings and review by the Special Tribunal and agreed with

  the Commission’s recommendations that he be publicly censured. (Pursuant to RJD

  6.5(a) and RJD 37(e), the Amended Stipulation, the Commission’s

  recommendations, and the record of proceedings became public when the

  Commission filed its recommendations with the Special Tribunal.)

¶ 11    The Commission noted that it often seeks an award of fees and costs in

  disciplinary matters. The Commission also noted that the expenses of this

  investigation were unusually high due to obstacles it encountered. But the

  Commission found that former Chief Justice Coats was cooperative in the

  investigation, and it did not attribute the obstacles to him. In light of his

  cooperation, the Commission does not seek fees or costs in this case.

¶ 12    Upon consideration of the law, the evidence, the record of proceedings, the

  Amended Stipulation, and the Commission’s recommendations, and being

  sufficiently advised in the premises, the Special Tribunal concludes that the terms of

  the Amended Stipulation comply with RJD 37(e) and are supported by the record of

  proceedings. Therefore, the Special Tribunal orders the Amended Stipulation to

  become effective and issues the agreed-upon sanction.

                                             13
¶ 13    The Special Tribunal hereby publicly censures you, former Chief Justice

  Nathan B. Coats, for violating Colorado Code of Judicial Conduct Canon Rule

  2.5(A).

        The Special Tribunal:

             Hon. David M. Furman

             Hon. Anthony J. Navarro

             Hon. Elizabeth L. Harris

             Hon. Rebecca R. Freyre

             Hon. Craig R. Welling

             Hon. Jaclyn C. Brown

             Hon. Christina F. Gomez

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