Court Opinion

ID: 9699753
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:50:22.281938+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:56.745846
License: Public Domain

LEDERBERG, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the majority’s decision to publish future opinions of the Advisory Committee on the Code of Judicial Conduct (committee) for the reasons set forth in the opinion and, additionally, for the reasons that follow.
The Constitution of the State of Rhode Island (Constitution) embodies the noble tenets of public service by declaring that “The people of the State of Rhode Island believe that public officials and employees must adhere to the highest standards of ethical conduct, respect the public trust and the rights of all persons, be open, accountable and responsive, avoid the appearance of impropriety and not use their position for private gain or advantage.” R.I. Const, art. 3, sec. 7. In order to assist in achieving these reasonable and reassuring goals, the Constitution endows an ethics commission with authority to adopt a code of ethics whose rules shall apply to “[a]ll elected and appointed officials and employees of state and local government.” Id. at sec. 8. Accordingly, all public officials and employees, including judges, are bound to comply with these ethics rules and statutes. But, judges in addition must conform their conduct to the standards set forth in the Canons of the Code of Judicial Conduct. Article VI of the Supreme Court Rules.
The Code of Judicial Conduct (code) applies to all officers of the judicial system in state courts (including, for example, magistrates and masters) as well as to all judges of Probate, Municipal, and Housing Courts in the cities and towns. Canon 5 A of Art. VI of the Supreme Court Rules. Thus, the jurisdiction of the committee extends well beyond the class of state judges.
When a public official seeks advice from the ethics commission regarding a potential conflict-of-interest, the response to that request is published with identification of all parties. If we were to require less of judges who consult the committee, we might appear to afford judges greater protection than that afforded other public officials who similarly attempt to comply with ethical rules when they seek advice from the ethics commission. Publication of the committee’s work will serve to increase accountability by public officials who enjoy life tenure. Because the canons of the code are “rules of reason” and because the code is to be construed so as not to impinge on the essential independence of judicial decision-making, Rule 1 of Art. VI, the publication of the efforts that judges make to maintain standards of ethical conduct will increase public confidence in judicial decisions. “We must never forget that the only real source of power that we as judges can tap is the respect of the people.” Thurgood Marshall, Judges Must Strive for Neutrality, Chicago Tribune, Aug. 15, 1981, at 7.
To date, the committee has issued about ninety advisory opinions. The opinions issued by the committee between 1983 and mid-1990 have, in fact, been published in redacted form by the American Judicature Society. The Digest of Judicial Ethics Advisory Opinions, 478-83 (Debora L. Solomon ed. 1991). Nationwide, the issue that garners the most advisory activity in other states’ judicial advisory committees pertains to judges who seek advice on whether they *1069should be disqualified from hearing a case. See Vivi Dilweg et al., Modem Judicial Ethics 53 (National Judicial College 1992). In our state, such recusal issues have accounted for about 12 percent of all inquiries to the committee. See Digest of Judicial Ethics Advisory Opinions at 478-83. The impact of recusal on court operations hafe been cogently described by the United States Supreme Court in its recently revised policy which delineates the circumstances under which those justices will hear cases when parties before the Court are represented by law firms in which members of the justices’ families are employed. Uneasy that “[ejven one unnecessary recusal impairs the functioning of the Court,” the Court worried that “stra-tegizing” recusals could become a common occurrence caused by litigants who would select “law firms with an eye to producing the recusal of particular Justices.” Statement of Recusal Policy, Supreme Court of the United States, November 1, 1993.
Although the identification of parties in published advisory opinions may deter judges from seeking advice on strictly personal, family, or health-related matters whose revelation would not likely serve a public purpose, requests in these areas do not appear to be frequent. Of the approximately ninety inquiries from judges to the committee in the past ten years, most have concerned three areas: thirty-five (about 40 percent) have sought guidance on the appropriateness of the inquiring judge’s attending events as a guest or an honoree; twenty-three (about 26 percent) have asked whether the inquiring judge’s membership on a committee, board, or organization would violate the code; and nine (about 12 percent) sought advice on recusals. Speculation that the committee may uniformly permit the requested activity, and thus routinely furnish a safe harbor from charges of ethical violations, is unfounded. In fact, the committee advised against the putative conduct in one-third of the inquiries, after determining that the proposed activity would violate the code; in two-thirds of the inquiries the committee found no violation of the code by a judge’s potential action. Id.
Overall, the ethical principles in our Constitution and the premises of the Code of Judicial Conduct would be served by publication of the committee’s decisions, and in consequence the competing though essential interests of judicial independence and judicial accountability can be balanced.