Court Opinion

ID: 9849822
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:47:10.073265+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:26.634097
License: Public Domain

HOWE, Chief Justice,
concurring specially:
¶ 31 I concur and write to more specifically articulate why I am voting for a rehearing and to reverse our earlier decision.
¶ 32 In our prior opinion, we held that the Conduct Commission exercised “a type of judicial authority,” and then, I believe, we erroneously concluded that legislators could not exercise such authority. In so holding, we were not true to our prior cases on the separation of powers as has been explained in the majority opinion written by Justice Zimmerman. In Timpanogos Planning & Water Management Agency v. Central Utah Water Conservancy District, 690 P.2d 562 (Utah 1984), we wrote that “the cases on separation of powers do not enunciate bright lines whereby each of the three governmental powers may be quickly and clearly identified.” That fact makes our task more difficult. The best guide that we have was stated in Taylor v. Lee, 119 Utah 302, 226 P.2d 531 (1951), where we stated that it is only those powers which are so “inherently legislative, executive, or judicial in character that they must be exercised exclusively by their respective departments.”
¶ 33 There are certain powers which are unquestionably judicial powers: sentencing those who violate the criminal laws; the construction and interpretation of a constitution; entering a money judgment against a person, just to name a few. I have found little or no authority that the power to discipline judges is a primary function of the judiciary, nor that it is inherently judicial in character. In not focusing on the primary functions of the judiciary in our former opinion, I believe that we erred. We were persuaded that if members of other branches of government were involved in judicial discipline, they- might be able to embarrass members of the judiciary, thereby impairing judicial independence. While that argument has some merit, our case law simply does not extend the separation of powers that far. I also believe that in our former opinion we failed to give proper weight to the fact that the Conduct Commission only makes recommendations to this court on discipline, and that it is this court, and not the Commission, that imposes the discipline.
¶ 34 As to the power of the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives to appoint legislators to serve on the Conduct Commission, we again erred in denying that power to them. Unlike the members of the State Board of Education which we held in Rampton v. Barlow, 23 Utah 2d 383, 464 P.2d 378 (1970), could not be appointed by legislative leaders because the Board was part of the executive department, the Conduct Commission, while having its roots in article VIII of the Constitution, does not exercise powers which are primarily or inherently judicial.