Court Opinion

ID: 9710213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:04:31.753781+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:55.159603
License: Public Domain

BYER, Judge,
concurring.
Although I have some doubt concerning the issue discussed in part II of this opinion, I concur in the result.
I.
I cannot join the majority opinion to the extent it holds that the mootness doctrine “is applicable to the imposition of sanctions only.” Majority opinion at 46. By reasoning *49from that incorrect premise, the majority erroneously concludes that this case would not be moot even if the Board elects not to seek a sanction limiting Respondent’s ability to practice law.
A.
Where, because of changed circumstances, a judicial remedy no longer will affect the status of the parties, the case must be dismissed as moot. See DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312, 94 S.Ct. 1704, 40 L.Ed.2d 164 (1974); Commonwealth, Dept. of Environmental Resources v. Jubelirer, 531 Pa. 472, 614 A.2d 204 (1992); Easton Theatres, Inc. v. Wells Fargo Land & Mortgage Co., 498 Pa. 557, 449 A.2d 1372 (1982); Kuriger v. Cramer, 345 Pa.Super. 595, 498 A.2d 1331 (1985); Goldsborough v. Commonwealth, Dept. of Education, 137 Pa.Commw. 466, 586 A.2d 997 (1991).
In each of the above cases, I suppose one could have argued that the court could have decided the liability issue, because only the remedy was moot. However, such an argument would be contrary to precedent. Unlike the majority here, courts do not look at mootness in such a narrow fashion, for an obvious reason. Where a remedy cannot affect the status of the parties, any decision on liability would be advisory. A function of the mootness doctrine is to prevent courts from rendering prohibited advisory decisions. See Jubelirer; Jefferson Bank v. Newton Associates, 454 Pa.Super. 654, 686 A.2d 834 (1996); see also Erie Insurance Exchange v. Claypoole, 449 Pa.Super. 142, 673 A.2d 348 (1996).
After the Board filed its Complaint in this Court, the Senate convicted Respondent on an article of impeachment, removed Respondent from judicial office and disqualified Respondent from holding any public office, judicial or otherwise, in the future.1 If we were to convict Respondent on the charges before us, we could not remove him from judicial office or disqualify him from holding future judicial office, because the Senate already has conclusively done so. Furthermore, we do not have the power to enter a judgment contradicting the judgment of the Senate. Therefore, in the absence of the Board’s seeking a remedy restricting Respondent’s ability to practice law, any decision we would render on the current charges would be a prohibited advisory opinion.
B.
I would hold that in the absence of a potential remedy affecting the right to practice law — e.g. where the Board does not seek such a remedy, or the judicial officer is a district justice not licensed to practice law— the Senate’s removal and disqualification of a judicial officer renders disciplinary proceedings before this court moot.
Because Respondent has been removed from office and disqualified from holding not only judicial office but also any other public office in the future, the Supreme Court’s decisions in Matter of Glancey, 518 Pa. 276, 542 A.2d 1350 (1988), and Judicial Inquiry and Review Board v. Snyder, 514 Pa. 142, 523 A.2d 294 (1987), are distinguishable and do not support the majority’s conclusion. Analysis of those cases demonstrates that the removal of a judicial officer from office does not render disciplinary proceedings moot only where, unlike here, there still is an issue with respect to that officer’s qualification to hold office in the future.
In Snyder, the judicial officer lost a retention election, and was thereby removed from office by the electorate while disciplinary charges were pending. In Glancey, the judicial officer sought to conclude disciplinary proceedings before the Supreme Court by resigning his office and consenting to the entry of an order declaring him ineligible to hold judicial office in the' future. In both cases the Supreme Court concluded that the matters were not moot. In Snyder, the Supreme Court noted that although Judge Snyder was no longer a judicial officer, the Court still had the duty to consider whether to impose on former Judge Snyder a permanent bar to holding judicial office. In Glancey, *50the court quoted its decision in Snyder, noting that one of the purposes of the judicial discipline system is to maintain the integrity of the judicial system in order to ensure public confidence in the law. The court further discussed its role as follows:
Art. V, § 18(i) is clear in its mandate that where the appropriate sanction for the errant behavior of a judicial officer justifies the imposition of the censure of removal, it carries with it a permanent bar against future judicial service. This is a clear mandate of the people that ineligibility for future service must be part of the sanction imposed. Thus, the mere termination of the present term of office does not comply with the constitutionally mandated punishment if the established conduct requires the imposition of the sanction of removal. Moreover, the binding effect of a gratuitous promise by a respondent not to seek or hold judicial office in this Commonwealth in the future is at best questionable.
Glancey, 518 Pa. at 284, 542 A.2d at 1353-54.
Here, unlike Snyder, the Senate’s determination conclusively resolves the question of the Respondent’s eligibility for future office. We are powerless to hold otherwise. The Senate’s conclusive judgment of disqualification cannot be diminished by comparing it with the “gratuitous promise” which the court called “questionable” in Glancey. Therefore, Glancey and Snyder do not save this case from mootness.2
C.
I also disagree with the majority’s conclusion that this case cannot be dismissed as moot because of the hypothetical possibility that Respondent might succeed in both his pending collateral attacks on the Senate’s proceedings and his criminal conviction. There is no authority supporting the proposition that a pending collateral attack will save a case from mootness. The only authority which the majority cites in support of this novel proposition is a thoroughly unconvincing Texas opinion, which fails to analyze the question.
Both the United States Supreme Court and the Pennsylvania Supreme. Court have held that hypothetical possibilities do not create an exception to the mootness doctrine. See DeFunis; Jubelirer. If Respondent were to succeed in both his pending collateral attacks after this Court dismissed this case as moot, there is nothing which would prevent the Board from reinstituting charges, because there is no limitation of actions provision applicable to proceedings before this Court.
II.
This case should be dismissed as moot if it were not for the Supreme Court’s opinion in Disciplinary Counsel v. Anonymous Attorney A, 528 Pa. 83, 595 A.2d 42 (1991). Although I do not share the strength of the majority’s conviction that Anonymous Attorney A survives the 1993 amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution which established this Court and revised the judicial discipline system in our Commonwealth, I concur in the majority’s result.
Pennsylvania Constitution, Article V, Section 18(d)(3), by providing that a judicial officer who is “disbarred as a member of the bar of the Supreme Court” shall be removed, by this Court, from office seems to anticipate that the disbarment would occur in some other proceeding, before another tribunal. However, as the majority correctly notes, a similar provision existed in the Pennsylvania Constitution before the 1993 amendment and *51at the time Anonymous Attorney A was decided.
A question in my mind is whether Anonymous Attorney A might have been incorrectly decided in view of the provision now found in Pennsylvania Constitution, Article V, Section 18(d)(3). Of course, when the Supreme Court decided Anonymous Attorney A, resolution of that question really did not matter. Under the discipline scheme then in effect, the Supreme Court was not bound by recommendations of the former Judicial Inquiry and Review Board, but would review them de novo, the same standard applicable to the Supreme Court’s review of lawyer disciplinary decisions by the Disciplinary Board. Thus, all Anonymous Attorney A did was to shift the initial recommendation responsibility from one agency of the Supreme Court to another agency of the Supreme Court, with the Supreme Court making the ultimate disciplinary decision.
It might be possible to harmonize the holding of Anonymous Attorney A with Pennsylvania Constitution Article V, Section 18(d)(3). If the holding of Anonymous Attorney A were limited to situations where the disciplinary sanction affecting the right to practice law is based upon conduct which occurred while the judicial officer was holding judicial office, then a complaint that a judicial officer violated the Rules of Professional Conduct before assuming judicial office would be prosecuted before the Disciplinary Board in the first instance, with the final decision to be made by the Supreme Court; and in ease of disbarment for such conduct, Pennsylvania Constitution Article V, Section 18(d)(3) would require that this Court remove the offender from judicial office.
The problem is that the opinion in Anonymous Attorney A, by relying upon In Re Greenberg, 442 Pa. 411, 280 A.2d 370 (1971), and in dicta, appears to conclude that JIRB and not the Disciplinary Board had jurisdiction over complaints that a judicial officer had violated the Rules of Professional Conduct before assuming judicial office. Such a conclusion not only is dicta, because the conduct involved in Anonymous Attorney A occurred while the respondents were acting as judicial officers, but also is troubling because it would reduce to surplusage the phrase “disbarred as a member of the bar of the Supreme Court” in Pennsylvania Constitution Article V, Section 18(d)(3).
I also am troubled by trying to harmonize the continued precedential authority of Anonymous Attorney A in light of other changes made by the 1993 amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution. As noted above, when the Supreme Court decided Anonymous Attorney A, the decision of whether to vest jurisdiction in the former Judicial Inquiry and Review Board or in the Disciplinary Board made no difference, because the Supreme Court made the ultimate decision. However, under the 1993 amendment to Pennsylvania Constitution, Article V, Section 18(c)(2), the Supreme Court has a limited standard of review over decisions of this Court, pursuant to which the Supreme Court is limited to a clearly erroneous standard in reviewing our findings of fact and has no power to review our sanctions except to determine whether they are lawful.
I am concerned that the result of applying the jurisdictional holding of Anonymous Attorney A to this Court creates inconsistencies in the Supreme Court’s ability to exercise its exclusive power to regulate the practice of law under Pennsylvania Constitution Article V, § 10, and its imposition of disciplinary sanctions pursuant to that power, depending upon whether the offender was holding judicial office.
I also am bothered by two additional aspects of the problem. First, if this Court has the power to disbar or suspend a judicial officer with respect to his or her right to practice law, do we also have jurisdiction over applications for reinstatement? See Pa. R.D.E. 218. Second, the effect of our decision is to expand not only our jurisdiction but also that of the Judicial Conduct Board, permitting that Board to delve into policy issues involving regulation of the practice of law.
On the other hand, the majority’s decision to follow Anonymous Attorney A notwithstanding the 1993 Constitutional amendment promotes both efficiency and fairness to judicial officers. It makes better sense for judicial officers who are members of the bar *52and who are charged with violations of both the Code of Judicial Conduct and the Rules of Professional Conduct to face only a single proceeding before this Court and to have all sanctions imposed at once, instead of proceedings both before this Court and the Disciplinary Board, with separate appellate review in the Supreme Court subject to different standards. Such a scheme also avoids the possibility of excessive punishment, because this Court, taking into consideration all the circumstances, could make the determination whether judicial disciplinary sanctions standing alone would be sufficient to vindicate the public interest, while there might be a greater temptation to impose multiple sanctions if the case were heard in the Disciplinary Board as well.
Nevertheless, difficult questions remain, including:
1. Which tribunal has jurisdiction over applications for reinstatement;
2. Does this Court have jurisdiction over claims that a judicial officer violated the Rules of Professional Conduct in his or her law practice before assuming judicial office;
3. Which tribunal has jurisdiction over lawyer disciplinary cases against district justices, where the discipline is sought based upon conduct which was unrelated to the respondent’s judicial duties but instead related to his or her separate practice of law; and
4. What is the standard of review on appeal from a sanction which affects a judicial officer’s right to practice law when that sanction is imposed by this Court?
The Supreme Court has the power to resolve these questions pursuant to its rule making authority. The Supreme Court also could use its rule making authority to confirm that this Court does have jurisdiction to enter a sanction affecting a judicial officer’s ability to practice law as a sanction for judicial misconduct, assuming that the Supreme Court intends that its holding in Anonymous Attorney A survive the 1993 Constitutional amendments. I urge that the Court resolve these issues by appropriate rules quickly.
III.
We are deciding these issues in a context which is somewhat hypothetical. Respondent has not indicated any intent to resume the practice of law. However, short of a formal resignation from the Bar of the Supreme Court under Pa.R.D.E. 215, an expression by Respondent that he does not intend to resume the practice of law in Pennsylvania probably would be insufficient to require dismissal of this case as moot, because, under Glancey, such an expression would be a “gratuitous promise.”
More to the point, the Board has not formally decided whether, in fact, it will request this Court to impose a sanction restricting Respondent’s ability to practice law. At the May 27, 1998 oral argument on Respondent’s Omnibus Motion, counsel for the Board stated that the Board had not yet taken a position on this question.
Fairness and judicial efficiency dictate that the Board make a decision now with respect to whether it intends to seek to limit Respondent’s right to practice law. If the Board has no intention of seeking such a further sanction on Respondent, then in fairness the Board should advise both this Court and Respondent, and we should then dismiss this action as moot.
This case is yet another chapter in the saddest volume of the otherwise distinguished history of the Pennsylvania judiciary. It is time to close the book.

. The Court of Common Pleas also ordered Respondent removed from office as part of the judgment of sentence in the criminal case.

. Article V, § 18(d)(5) of the Pennsylvania Constitution does not support the majority’s conclusion. By providing that the judicial disciplinary provisions are "in addition to and not in substitution for” the General Assembly’s impeachment power, the Constitution does not provide the Court of Judicial Discipline with the power to proceed, in the absence of a case or controversy, with the needless act of removing and disqualifying a judicial officer whom the Senate already has removed and disqualified; nor does it authorize this Court to reach an independent determination which might be inconsistent with the Senate’s convicting a judicial officer on articles of impeachment. Instead, this provision makes clear that the adoption of specific judicial disciplinary proceedings in Art. V, § 18 does not supplant the Legislative Branch’s general power of impeachment over all public officers, including judicial officers.