Court Opinion

ID: 9564482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:01:38.733414+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:27.433503
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
G. Dennis Adams has been a good judge for his 20 years on the bench. Of that there is no doubt. The special masters—three experienced jurists—so found. The underlying evidence was compelling.
“[Judge Adams] attended high school in San Diego and was graduated from the University of San Diego Law School in 1965. He was number two in his class academically, received the highest grade in his classes numerous times, worked on the Law Review, and was designated the outstanding graduate of 1965. In 1983 he received the alumnus of the year award from his law school. After law school he received a Ford Foundation Fellowship Scholarship Stipend in Political Science and went to work for [Senator] Mark Hatfield of Oregon as a speech writer. He then served in the military, worked for a future Attorney General of Oregon and then returned to San Diego to practice law. He practiced as a Federal Public Defender for six months and then joined his father in a law practice for approximately seven years. [Citation.]
“[Judge Adams] was appointed to the San Diego Municipal Court in 1975. While on that court he became heavily involved in the design of courts, spending many hours developing the East County Regional Center and lobbying that project through the Board of Supervisors. Beginning in 1975, [he] also participated in the so-called El Cajon Experiment, which project authorized Municipal Court Judges in El Cajon to perform certain superior court functions, both civil and criminal, in the El Cajon Municipal Court facility. This avoided the apparent necessity of establishing a branch superior court in El Cajon. [He] redrafted a bill to establish this experiment and lobbied it through the California Legislature. This project increased court efficiency in both criminal and civil matters and is still being utilized.
“[Judge Adams] was appointed to the superior court in 1979 and elected and re-elected for successive terms in 1980, 1986, and 1992. After about one year in the domestic relations department, [he] was assigned to juvenile court for several years. There, he became actively involved with legislation and programs to keep children out of the California Youth Authority. One, called ‘Children In Placement[,’] involved several hundred volunteers, each assigned to monitor two or three cases for the juvenile court. This program is still operating.
*916“In a further attempt to help children in the juvenile justice system, [Judge Adams] initiated cooperation between the court and Vision Quest, an organization which works with children, providing them with alternative activities to delinquency involvement. The San Diego Juvenile Court is still using this means of delinquency prevention and rehabilitation.
“[Judge Adams] served in various trial departments until 1987, when he became heavily involved in cases alleging construction defects in residential housing tracts, which comprised a very important part of the case load in San Diego county in ensuing years. These cases involved numerous parties and attorneys, called for extensive discovery and other pretrial procedures, and placed a premium on skillful and diligent case management and settlement efforts. By 1988, he was generally considered the judge of choice by counsel on all sides of construction defect cases, and all such cases were assigned to him for management purposes. . . .
“During his time on the bench, [Judge Adams] has also taught in several law schools. He taught trial technique for five years at the University of San Diego Law School, later taught juvenile law at California Western University, and then constitutional law for five years at National University. He has also taught at a number of Continuing Education of the Bar and Rutter Group programs.
“While we are concerned about [Judge Adams’s] behavior in certain respects—especially as to the charge in Count Four regarding his responses to the Commission [on Judicial Performance’s] staff, and as to Count One his failure to appreciate, at the time, the possible public interpretation of his engaging in business dealings with an auto dealer [James Williams] and an attorney [Patrick Frega] in whose favor he had previously rendered a huge judgment, we have seen no evidence that his judicial work was based on anything other than the merits of the matters he was handling. We see him as an unusually competent and innovative judge who used poor judgment in certain instances, rather than as a scoundrel who has disgraced the Bench. This proceeding does not involve an evaluation of his total performance as a judge, but to the extent that the evidence from 57 witnesses has touched on that question, it suggests that he might come out well on such a test.”
Just as there is no doubt that Judge Adams has been a good judge for his 20 years on the bench, there is also no doubt that he has subjected himself to discipline by certain of his acts and omissions off the bench. Indeed, he concedes the point.
*917But what discipline is appropriate for Judge Adams? Removal from office? I think not.
In determining appropriate discipline under former subdivision (c) of section 18 of article VI of the California Constitution, which governs the proceedings here, we seek as our “ultimate objective ... to protect the judicial system and the public which it serves from judges who are unfit to hold office.” (McComb v. Commission on Judicial Performance (1977) 19 Cal.3d Spec. Trib. Supp. 1, 9; accord, Wenger v. Commission on Judicial Performance (1981) 29 Cal.3d 615, 654 [175 Cal.Rptr. 420, 630 P.2d 954]; Furey v. Commission on Judicial Performance (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1297, 1320 [240 Cal.Rptr. 859, 743 P.2d 919]; see Kloepfer v. Commission on Judicial Performance (1989) 49 Cal.3d 826, 864-865 [264 Cal.Rptr. 100, 782 P.2d 239, 89 A.L.R.4th 235].)
The discipline that is appropriate for any given judge is the sanction that is necessary to achieve the goal of protecting the public and the judicial system itself. (See Kloepfer v. Commission on Judicial Performance, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 865.)
As to Judge Adams, removal is not necessary for that purpose. From all that appears, public censure would be adequate: he has shown himself to be willing and able to reform.
Let us focus on what all apparently agree to be the most serious charges, those contained in count 1 and count 4.
It cannot be denied that Judge Adams deserves discipline for his acts and omissions in count 1. The incidents involving automobile dealer James Williams and Attorney Patrick Frega were several. But, as the majority show, all of them occurred within a period of time that was relatively brief. And, as the majority effectively concede, none of them was tainted by venality.
Neither can it be denied that Judge Adams deserves discipline for his acts and omissions in count 4. His responses to inquiries by the Commission on Judicial Performance were in fact inaccurate and incomplete.
Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, however, they did not constitute wilful misconduct.
Wilful misconduct has been defined simply as “unjudicial conduct which a judge acting in his judicial capacity commits in bad faith ....’’ (Geiler v. *918Commission on Judicial Qualifications (1973) 10 Cal.3d 270, 284 [110 Cal.Rptr. 201, 515 P.2d 1].)
The majority assert that Judge Adams was “acting in his judicial capacity” when he made his responses. (Geiler v. Commission on Judicial Qualifications, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 284.) He was not. A physician is not providing medical services when he participates in an investigation into his conduct by the Medical Board’s Division of Medical Quality. Similarly, a judge is not performing judicial functions when he participates in an investigation into his conduct by the commission.
The majority also assert that Judge Adams made his responses “in bad faith.” (Geiler v. Commission on Judicial Qualifications, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 284.) He did not. The question, of course, goes to his state of mind. The special masters, who saw him testify and heard his testimony, found in his favor. The majority have no basis to do otherwise. They ought to give such a finding “special weight,” reflecting as it does the special masters’ evaluation of his credibility. (Fitch v. Commission on Judicial Performance (1995) 9 Cal.4th 552, 556 [37 Cal.Rptr.2d 581, 887 P.2d 937].) Instead, they give it no weight at all. Furthermore, they totally ignore the following undisputed fact, which the special masters evidently considered of critical import in this regard. At the time pertinent here, Judge Adams’s fiancée, now his wife, was suffering from life-threatening breast cancer, for which she was subjected to various surgical procedures, and she then faced the prospect of life-threatening radiation treatment as therapy against the malignancy. Judge Adams had given himself over to caring for her, and was altogether preoccupied with her condition. Perhaps if these circumstances had not obtained, the majority’s claim that he “either knew or should have known that his responses were either inaccurate or incomplete” might be sound. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 910.) But since they did, their assertion is undermined by common human experience.
As to Judge Adams, as I stated above, removal is not necessary to protect the public and the judicial system itself. Certainly, such a sanction would be sharply out of line with our prior decisions. The majority recognize as much. “In past judicial disciplinary proceedings that have resulted in a judge’s removal from office, the misconduct that we have determined justified this most severe of disciplinary sanctions generally has involved a pattern of arbitrary, irrational, and inappropriate conduct of the judge while acting on the bench in dealings with litigants, attorneys, witnesses, and other persons, or while otherwise performing his or her judicial functions, and an abuse of his or her judicial powers and authority.” (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 912-913, *919italics added.) Judge Adams, obviously, has not engaged in a “pattern of arbitrary, irrational, and inappropriate conduct . . . while . . . performing his . . . judicial functions,” nor has he “abuse[d] . . . his . . . judicial powers and authority.” Quite the opposite. He has been a good judge for his 20 years on the bench.
All that the majority can say in support of removal is that, in their view, Judge Adams’s “extrajudicial transactions” have “creat[ed] an appearance of serious impropriety” and have “thereby tend[ed] to diminish the public esteem of the judiciary . . . .” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 914.) In so many words, they announce that he must be removed because of certain of his acts and omissions off the bench, even though he has in fact properly performed his judicial functions during his long tenure and, as the record shows, has actually increased his community’s confidence in its judges. No reasonable person could agree. I surely cannot.
Because the appropriate discipline for Judge Adams is not removal but public censure, I must, and do, dissent.
Petitioner’s application for a rehearing was denied September 14, 1995. Mosk , J., was of the opinion that the application should be granted.