Court Opinion

ID: 9732265
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:13:39.356012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:25.696404
License: Public Domain

Mahady, J.,
dissenting. I respectfully dissent from the holding of the majority that there is no public right of access to discovery materials in the possession of the Judicial Conduct Board (Board) under the facts of this case.
Those facts are important. According to her uncontroverted affidavit, petitioner’s reporter had over a period of time obtained access to the pleadings and other motions filed with the Board from the legal counsel of the parties. In September of 1987, she became aware of discovery materials which had been provided to the Board. She asked Justice Hill’s counsel for access to all discovery materials in the possession of the Board. She was told that counsel had no objection to such access but that counsel was understandably unwilling to go through his own files in order to cull from the files those materials which had been provided to the Board. It was suggested that she examine the actual materials in the Board’s possession.
On October 14, 1987, the reporter made a request of the Board for access to these materials. Two days later the Board met. While in executive session the Board decided to return the discovery materials in its possession to counsel and to order that no further discovery materials be provided to the Board. No party to the proceedings had requested such a ruling from the Board.
*243The Board’s action, which this Court today approves, is rather akin to an attempt to put toothpaste back into the tube. Predictably, the result is both messy and unconvincing.
Our Rules clearly provide that “[a]ll papers, files, transcripts and communications in proceedings before the Board before the filing of a formal charge shall be confidential.” JCB Rule 6(7). Here, a formal charge has been filed. In such cases, our Rules clearly provide that “[a]fter the service of a formal charge . . . the proceedings shall be public.” JCB Rule 6(15).
Making the apparently naive assumption that our Rules mean precisely what they say, the issue is a simple one. The discovery materials are “papers ... in [a] proceeding before the Board . ...” A formal charge has been filed. Therefore, the “proceedings shall be public.”
However, the majority, at the same time characterizing petitioner’s argument as “embodfying] an overly technical and rigid application of the JCB Rules,” determines that the documents were never “filed” with the Board. The verb “to file” means “[t]o place among official records.” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, 462. The discovery materials at issue were, in fact, placed among the official records of the Board. They are still there. To say that the documents were not “filed” is to use language in a manner which confounds reality.
While professing to “express a very narrow holding,” the majority goes on to broad and dangerous dicta which suggest that “there is no constitutional or common law right to examine discovery materials, whether or not filed.” This is a matter about which there is no judicial unanimity. See, e.g., Anderson v. Cryovac, Inc., 805 F.2d 1 (1st Cir. 1986); Worrell Newspapers of Indiana, Inc. v. Westhafer, 739 F.2d 1219, 1223 n.4 (7th Cir. 1984); Tavoulareas v. Washington Post Co., 737 F.2d 1170, 1172 (D.C. Cir. 1984); see also Avirgan v. Hull, 118 F.R.D. 252 (D.D.C. 1987) (denying a Rule 26(c) motion for a protective order which would have prohibited the press from attending a deposition). (Moreover, in Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, 467 U.S. 20 (1984), cited by the majority, “[t]he Supreme Court did not hold that the first amendment was not implicated at all” as to discovery materials. Anderson v. Cryovac, Inc., 805 F.2d at 7.)
In any event, the majority, relying upon precedents from civil and criminal cases in the context of this judicial disciplinary proceeding, compares apples to oranges. As the majority itself notes, *244an “important factor in this case is that it involves the judicial discipline process and not a civil or criminal trial.”
Such proceedings are governed by our own Rules which on their face create a public right to access to documents placed among the official records of the Board after formal charges are filed. Such proceedings are also essential to public confidence in its judiciary. The fact that the Board has gone to such lengths to create secrecy “can only breed ignorance and distrust of [the Board] and suspicion concerning the competence and impartiality of [its proceedings]; free and robust reporting, criticism, and debate can contribute to public understanding of the rule of law and to comprehension of the functioning of the entire [judicial] system, as well as improve the quality of that system by subjecting it to the cleansing effects of exposure and public accountability.” Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 587 (1976) (Brennan, J., concurring). “ ‘Openness . . . enhances both the basic fairness of the [proceeding] and the appearance of fairness so essential to public confidence in the system.’ ” State v. Tallman, 148 Vt. 465, 474, 537 A.2d 422, 427 (1987) (quoting Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of California, 464 U.S. 501, 508 (1984)).
While it is in no way necessary in this case to reach the constitutional issues, the constitutional guarantee of a free press is clearly, indeed, starkly, in the background. Along with Judge Oakes, “I share with Vincent Blasi* a ‘pathological’ concern for the first amendment, indeed for the whole Bill of Rights. . . . The truth-seeking function of [a] free [press] remains high on my agenda, as essential to appropriate self-government.” Oakes, Tolerance Theory and the First Amendment, 85 Mich. L. Rev. 1135, 1150-51 (1987). With sadness, I predict that the “very narrow holding” of today’s majority along with its accompanying dicta will some day find its way into the constitutional considerations of this Court. Under such circumstances, “my ‘pathological’ concern gets aroused.” Id.

 Blasi, Toward a Theory of Prior Restraint: The Central Linkage, 66 Minn. L. Rev. 11, 30 (1981).