Court Opinion

ID: 9474551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:01:18.292052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:10.522675
License: Public Domain

ADAMS, Circuit Judge
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join the majority’s conclusion in Part III that the reporters may not be barred from disclosing their testimony before the Board. On the issue of public access, however, I respectfully dissent, because I differ with the majority’s legal analysis and its result.
At the core of our differences on the access issue is a dispute over history. The majority believes that there is a “tradition of closed proceedings in the judicial disciplinary process ...” in Pennsylvania. This conclusion, however, is belied by the fact that throughout the state’s history the central instrument of judicial discipline has been impeachment, from its inception a public proceeding. Nor, when the Judicial Inquiry and Review Board (the Board) was created in 1969 to strengthen the disciplinary process, did it deviate from this tradition of openness. Significantly, the Board granted the public access to its formal hearings in the vast majority of cases by filing a transcript with the Supreme Court, and did not adopt its current position on confidentiality until the present proceeding was underway.
The correct legal analysis here flows in large measure from the historical record. Under the standards set out by the Supreme Court in Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596, 102 S.Ct. 2613, 73 L.Ed.2d 248 (1982), and Press-Enterprise v. Superior Court, 464 U.S. 501, 104 S.Ct. 819, 78 L.Ed.2d 629 (1984) a tradition of openness, coupled with the powerful functional values served by public access, gives rise to a presumption of access to Board proceedings. Pursuant to that authority, the presumption of openness may be overcome only by a showing that closure “is necessitated by a compelling governmental interest, and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.” Globe, 457 U.S. at 607, 102 S.Ct. at 2620. The Board’s conduct here, it is clear, cannot meet this standard.
Building on its conclusion that there has been a tradition of secrecy, the majority determines that the Coalition, in seeking access, must justify its infringement of the state’s choice of confidentiality even after a determination that a conflict is non-friv*482oleras and requires a full adversary hearing; it proceeds to hold that the Coalition has not done so in this case. Because the majority’s approach reflects a misreading of the historical record, and a sharp departure from controlling precedent, I must disagree.
I.
To see this case in proper perspective, it is necessary to focus precisely on the provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution at issue. Article V, § 18(h) governs the confidentiality of the state's Judicial Inquiry and Review Board; it states that “[a]ll papers filed with and proceedings before the board shall be confidential but upon being filed by the board in the Supreme Court, the record shall lose its confidential character.”1
Nothing in this provision specifies under what circumstances the record can or must be filed with the Supreme Court. What is abundantly clear is that once it is filed, it is no longer secret. From the time of its founding through June 1, 1983, the Board had disposed of 52 cases on the merits following a hearing, not including the present case. In all but six, the record was filed with the Supreme Court, and thus made public. The proceedings filed included 41 cases where the Board recommended sanctions, including four where the court did not follow the recommendation, as well as five others where the Board had determined no punishment was warranted. Although as the concurrence stresses the record was not filed in six other cases where the Board did not call for sanctions, the overall pattern suggests that these were simply exceptions to its general practice of filing the record after a hearing. The Board’s own characterization indicates as much: in pleadings before the district court, the Board declared that “In the past, the record has been filed with the Supreme Court after a hearing has been conducted, whether or not the Board has recommended the imposition of discipline.”2 App. at 40.
Until the present disciplinary proceeding was in progress, the Board’s filing practices had never been questioned. App. at 235. Indeed, at the time of its filings, the Board stated that it was acting pursuant to “powers provided for in Article V, Section 18, Subsection D of the Constitution of the Commonwealth.” App. at 236. After the Board had heard the case against Justice Larsen, however, it abruptly altered its usual procedure, and, for the first time sought an opinion from special counsel on the propriety of filing a record in a case where the Board had not recommended discipline. It was on the basis of this opinion that the Board came to take the position that the state constitution prohibited it from filing a record where charges against the judge were dismissed, after 15 years of practice to the contrary.3
*483II.
The past practice of the Board is directly relevant to one of the two criteria used to resolve a claim of access, whether there has been a history of openness. In Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 100 S.Ct. 2814, 65 L.Ed.2d 973 (1980), the Supreme Court held that the press and general public have a constitutional right of access to criminal trials. The plurality opinion by Chief Justice Burger relied on a history demonstrating that a presumption of openness inheres in the nature of a criminal trial under an Anglo-American system of justice. Id. at 564-73. Concurring, Justice Brennan wrote that resolution of a claim of access under the First Amendment must be evaluated in light of two factors: “The weight of historical practice” and an assessment of the societal benefits, or “specific structural value of public access in the circumstances.” Id. at 597.
This two-step analysis was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court two years later in Globe Newspaper v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596, 102 S.Ct. 2613, 73 L.Ed.2d 248 (1982), which held that the First Amendment prohibited a mandatory closure rule denying the press and public access to trials involving testimony by the minor victim of a sex crime. Citing Richmond Newspapers, the Court noted that the criminal trial historically has been open to the press and the general public. Globe, 457 U.S. at 605, 102 S.Ct. at 2619. The majority then proceeded to evaluate the functional role of access to trials. It concluded that it enhances the factfinding process, fosters an appearance of fairness in our system of justice, and permits the public to participate in and serve as a check upon the judicial process. Id. at 606, 102 S.Ct. at 2619. See also Press Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, 464 U.S. 501, 104 S.Ct. 819, 78 L.Ed.2d 629 (1984) (applying two-part test in granting claim of access to voir dire proceedings).
This Court has further recognized a right of access beyond the criminal context. In Publicker Industries, Inc. v. Cohen, 733 F.2d 1059 (3d Cir.1984), we addressed the issue of public access to civil trials. Surveying such venerable authorities as Coke, Hale, and Blackstone, the Court emphasized that “historically both civil and criminal trials have been presumptively open.” Id. at 1068. Turning to the second prong of the Globe analysis, we identified an important role for access in the functioning of the judiciary and the government as a whole. We found that access in the civil context served the same functions that the Supreme Court had enumerated in Globe. Id. at 1070. Perhaps most importantly, it was emphasized that access “permits the public to participate in and serve as a check upon the judicial process” and to ensure that the “constitutionally protected ‘discussion of governmental affairs’ is an informed one.” Id. (quoting Globe, 457 U.S. at 604-05, 102 S.Ct. at 2618-19).
We have also confronted claims of access to judicial proceedings which, unlike the criminal and civil trial, lacked a counterpart at common law. In such cases, courts have placed greater reliance on the structural First Amendment values served by access as distinguished from the historical factor. Thus, in United States v. Criden, 675 F.2d 550 (3d Cir.1982), we identified a right of access to a pretrial suppression hearing, despite the absence of a long history of openness. Because “the relative importance of pretrial procedure to that of trial has grown immensely in the last two hundred years,” we concluded that “we do not think that historical analysis is relevant in determining whether there is a first amendment right of access to pretrial criminal proceedings.” Id. at 555.
More recently, in United States v. Smith (Appeal of the Patriot News Co.), 776 F.2d *4841104 (3d Cir.1985), we held that there exists a presumptive right of access to a bill of particulars because of its close relationship to the indictment, which has historically been available to the public. Although “[bjills of particulars, relative to indictments, have a brief history,” we noted that in recent years indictments have become somewhat skeletal, and bills of particulars have thus grown to perform a large part of the role originally played by indictments. Id. at 1111. In addition, public access to such bills “serves the same societal interests served by access to the charging documents.” Id. Thus, the bill of particulars was held entitled to the same presumption of openness as the indictment.
These cases frame the appropriate inquiry for a court reviewing a claimed right of access. The inquiry entails review of both the history of openness and the functional values served by access. In examining these elements, a court must be guided by the purposes of the First Amendment, and be sensitive to historical evolution. Where new structures develop to fulfill the role earlier played by other structures, we must seek guidance from the history of the earlier institutions, as in Smith. Moreover, where a particular judicial proceeding has become a critical governmental institution only recently, we place correspondingly greater weight on the structural values furthered by access, as in Criden.
In the present case, the Board itself has a relatively brief institutional history. Nationally, more than two-thirds of the present-day judicial-discipline organizations came into existence during the last 15 years. See I. Tesitor & D. Sinks, Judicial Conduct Organizations 19-27 (1980). Pennsylvania’s Board began operation in 1969. While the state schemes vary as to the stage at which the board proceedings become public, the general practice of the Pennsylvania board has been to file a record with the Supreme Court, and thus allow public access after the Board has held a hearing on whether to recommend formal discipline. The Board’s policy on confidentiality was adopted as a balance between the need to protect the “judiciary ... from frivolous complaints,” and the recognition that “at the same time, the public must be made to know that its real complaints will be heard.” McDevitt, Reviewing the Review Board, 42 Pa.B.A.Q. 33, 36 (1970-71); see also Jones, State of the Judiciary in the Commonwealth, 45 Pa.B.A.Q. 152, 155 (1974) (Board has function of “providing the public with the assurance that the conduct of judges at all levels is really being policed____”). Thus the history of the Board up to the time of this case, though not a long one, demonstrates a tradition of openness in its proceedings consistent with the performance of its disciplinary function.
More important to the inquiry is the history of functionally similar procedures designed to discipline judges. See Comment, The First Amendment Right of Access to Civil Trials After Globe, 51 U.Chi.L.Rev. 286, 291 (1984). The analogue to the Board discipline, as the majority notes, is impeachment and removal for conviction of a crime. An impeachment proceeding has always been a quintessentially “public business.” C. Black, Impeachment: A Handbook 19 (1974). According to the majority, however, the analogy is inapplicable because “[t]he Board’s functions are intended to supplement rather than replace” the impeachment process. Ante at 472.
Examination of the debate leading to adoption of the Article V, however, undercuts this assertion. Creation of the Board grew out of a recognition that “[ijmpeachment is rarely used because it has been shown to be almost ineffective.” Laub, Issues Before the Judiciary Committee of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 39 Pa.B.A.Q. 390, 397 (1969). Thus a new method was needed. It is true that the Board was granted powers to punish more diverse types of judicial misconduct than could be remedied by impeachment, which was reserved for punishment of criminal acts of office and breaches of positive statutory duty. Id. at 397. Nevertheless, under the pre-1968 regime, impeachment was the primary means available for *485disciplining judicial misconduct; afterward, by contrast, action by the Board became the primary means. In functional terms, then, the proceedings before the Board replaced impeachment. Indeed, there have been no impeachment proceedings since the Board was created.
Even if we were to accept the majority’s label of “supplement” rather than “replacement,” moreover, we would still be compelled to look to the prior history of impeachment in analyzing the history of access to judicial disciplinary proceedings in Pennsylvania. To do otherwise would appear to ignore the teaching of Smith. There we noted that bills of particulars in recent years have come to perform part of the function initially served by the indictment, and so are now fairly seen “as supplements to the indictment,” id. at 1111, subject to a comparable right of access. Similarly, Board discipline, under any characterization, has at the very least come to play a major portion of the role formerly served by impeachment, and thus must be similarly open.
The majority’s assertion, then, that because of the lack of open proceedings in the judicial disciplinary process, the Coalition bears a burden of overcoming a presumption of confidentiality rests, I believe, on a misreading of the historical record. Together, the practice of the Board and the prior practice of its functional equivalent support the Coalition’s argument that history comports with a presumption of openness.
Against this background, we turn to the second step of the Richmond-Globe analysis, which calls for consideration of the structural values served by access. These values overwhelmingly support a presumption of access.
The majority asserts that in some circumstances acceptance of the structural considerations of the First Amendment could lead to “an unjustifiably expansive interpretation” of that constitutional provision, ante at 473, and that, as Justice Brennan has argued, the right to know “must be invoked with discrimination and temperance.” Richmond Newspapers, 448 U.S. at 588, 100 S.Ct. at 2833 (concurring opinion). As general propositions, these admonitions are unexceptionable. But they have little bearing on this case. Here, we consider the structural values of access in the context of a historically open proceeding, where the right of access sought attaches at the very point at which access generally has been granted. Moreover, this point occurs at a stage in the disciplinary proceedings where a review panel has found the complaint not to be frivolous, and where the subject of the complaint has had the benefit of a full adversary hearing. Thus, in neither theoretical nor practical terms does consideration of structural values in this case pose the danger of an “unrestrained right to gather information,” Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U.S. 1, 16-17, 85 S.Ct. 1271, 1280-81, 14 L.Ed.2d 179 (1965), a factor which apparently concerns the majority. Ante at 474.
One critical value furthered by access is its role in “heightening public respect for the judicial process.” Globe, 457 U.S. at 606, 102 S.Ct. at 2619. The facts of this case dramatically illustrate the importance of this value. As the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court stated in a related state court litigation, the underlying nature of the present matter included “allegations of rampant racism, vote-fixing, political maneuvering, personal eccentricities, and the indiscreet, if not unlawful, use of the influence of [a Justice’s] office for the political and personal benefits of his friends.” In re Subpoena Served by the Pennsylvania Crime Commission, 79 Pa.Commw. 375, 380, 470 A.2d 1048, 1051 (1983). The Commonwealth Court found that this matter had “shaken and continues to shake the public confidence in the administration of justice in this Commonwealth.” M4
*486To deny public access to the disposition of such charges once they have reached a formal stage may well create an impression that the Board’s “decisions [are] based on secret bias or partiality,” Richmond Newspapers, 448 U.S. at 569, 100 S.Ct. at 2823 (plurality opinion of Burger, C.J.); see Criden, 675 F.2d at 556, or stem from “parochial protectiveness.” In re Subpoena, 79 Pa.Commw. at 402, 470 A.2d at 1060. Completely closed Board proceedings may thus “breed suspicion of prejudice and arbitrariness, which in turn spawns disrespect for law.” Richmond Newspapers, 448 U.S. at 595, 100 S.Ct. at 2837 (Brennan, J., concurring). The most stringent set of ethical standards for elected officials would be of limited worth if the public is not persuaded that the standards are being fairly enforced. Legitimacy rests in large part on public understanding. See Note, Judicial Removal — Establishment of Judicial Commission for Removal of Judges Precludes Legislative Investigation of Judicial Misconduct, 84 Harv.L.Rev. 1002, 1009 (1971).
A related but important benefit secured by access is a “community therapeutic value.” Press-Enterprise, 464 U.S. at 508-09, 104 S.Ct. at 823; Richmond Newspapers, 448 U.S. at 570-71, 100 S.Ct. at 2823-24 (plurality). Allegations of misconduct by judges who are charged with meting out justice often provoke public outcries. A chance to verify that a public agency like the Board is effectively enforcing ethical rules provides an outlet for such reactions. As the Executive Director of the Board has stressed, “there is real value in giving citizens a sounding board for their grievances.” McDevitt, supra, 42 Pa.B.A.Q. at 35.
Public access also demonstrably advances the First Amendment’s “core purpose of assuring freedom of communication on matters relating to the functioning of government.” Richmond Newspapers, 448 U.S. at 575, 100 S.Ct. at 2826 (plurality). Access here would educate the public both about the Board and the judiciary. See Comment, supra, 132 U.Pa.L.Rev. at 1183 (1984). A public informed by access would in turn be better equipped to serve as a check on the judicial system, an essential component in our form of government. See Globe, 457 U.S. at 606, 102 S.Ct. at 2619. As to the Board, the knowledge that the press and public may review its actions will act as a safeguard against bias or partiality, and enable the public to evaluate the Board’s performance of its watchdog role. As to the judiciary, access to Board proceedings will enable citizens to evaluate judges, and make more effective decisions when the time comes for electing or reelecting them. This is especially appropriate in Pennsylvania which selects its judges by popular election.
Finally, opening Board hearings will likely make them more effective by enhancing their integrity. Factfinding before the Board may include production, and admission of documents, and testimony by witnesses. As in the criminal trial context, public scrutiny would discourage perjury or other misconduct. See Richmond Newspapers, 448 U.S. at 569, 100 S.Ct. at 2823 (Burger, C.J.) (plurality); Shaman and Begue, Silence Isn’t Always Golden: Reassessing Confidentiality in the Judicial Disciplinary Process, 58 Temple L.Q. 755, 771 (1985). Access would serve an important purpose as “security for testimonial trustworthiness.” Publicker, 733 F.2d at 1070.
Given the strength of these structural values, and the history of the Board’s practices as well as the predecessor impeachment process, it seems clear that a presumption of access attaches to the Board’s proceedings. To some extent the majority appears to concede this point. Although at one point it likens the Board to the Grand Jury, a secret body, ante at 473, it also “assume[s] a right of access” to Board proceedings at some stage, ante at 472, and *487states that “what tradition there is, favors public access only at a later stage in the process.” Ante at 473. Under this latter view, the right of access apparently attaches at a point the Board now contends it does, when formal sanctions are recommended to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. This contention, however, suffers from the same defect as the theory that there is a tradition of closure, since, as we have demonstrated, historically access was granted to formal hearings by the Board, regardless of their outcome. Similarly, in impeachment proceedings, access is granted to the trial at which the legislature determines whether to recommend conviction, regardless of whether conviction is recommended or not.
The only other support offered by the majority for its delayed point of access, under its theory of a “temporally based right,” ante at 473, is an analogy: the Board’s proceedings, the majority contends, are “most akin” to the grand jury, id., rather than the pre-trial and trial proceedings in Richmond Newspapers and its progeny. This is so, it is argued, “because the Board cannot impose, but only recommend, punishment____” Ante at 473.
In fact, however, the Board’s real powers are considerably greater than this analogy suggests, and the protections provided the subject of a complaint are correspondingly more stringent than before the grand jury. Unlike a grand jury, the Board may conduct full adversary hearings, designed to reach a conclusion on the merits of the charges, rather than merely a determination of probable cause. Where the Board does recommend sanctions, the Supreme Court does not retry the case, but decides to affirm or reject them on the basis of the transcript of Board hearings. Where the Board dismisses a complaint — as occurs in the vast majority of cases — its decision is final and unreviewable. See First Amendment Coalition, 501 Pa. 129, 460 A.2d 722.5 As a result of its power, in hundreds of cases the Board itself has imposed what it calls “informal” sanctions, including verbal reprimands, letters of admonition, and solicited resignations. While the Board now argues that these are “consensual” sanctions, this label should not cloud the underlying reality: the Board’s ability to obtain “consent” to such measures is in large part predicated on its unquestioned ability to effect formal punishment. Indeed, the Supreme Court has accepted the Board’s recommendation 90% of the time, a practice apparently contemplated from the start.6 Given its autonomy and power, even representatives of the Board have acknowledged that it “sit[s] first as an investigatory body, then as a quasi-judicial body.” McDevitt, supra, 42 Pa.B.A.Q. at 37 (1970).
Unlike the grand jury, then, but like the trial in Richmond Newspapers, judicial inquiry procedures in Pennsylvania are a “mechanism for judicial factfinding” and an “initial forum for legal decisionmaking,” 448 U.S. at 596, 100 S.Ct. at 2838 (Brennan, J., concurring), and are thus entitled to the same presumption of openness under the First Amendment.
III.
Concluding that a right of access exists, of course, does not complete the Court’s task. Such a right is not absolute. It may be overcome if the state demonstrates that closure “is necessitated by a compelling governmental interest, and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.” Press-Enterprise, 464 U.S. at 510, 104 S.Ct. at 824 (1984) (quoting Globe Newspaper, 457 U.S. at 607, 102 S.Ct. at 2620 (1983)). See *488Smith, 776 F.2d at 1112. Here, however, the Board cannot meet this standard.
The Board offered three major interests that it contends are sufficient to overcome the right of access. The first is that confidentiality encourages the filing of complaints by providing protection against retaliation. This interest may be quickly disposed of, however, since under Pennsylvania’s procedure, the judge under investigation, the person most likely to retaliate, has already been informed of the name of the initial complainant by the time a formal hearing begins. App. at 129-30, 262, 264. Although the subject is apparently not notified of the identities of the witnesses to appear, the disclosure of the complainant and the nature of the complaint will most often suggest those likely to be called. Thus, this interest is not a strong one once the proceedings pass the initial stage.
Two other rationales are suggested by the majority: the interest in the reputation of the judiciary and individual judges, and the need for flexibility in negotiating sanctions. The flexibility interest derives from the Board’s ability to encourage judges to resign voluntarily by offering to spare them the publicity of a hearing. See Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U.S. 829, 835-36, 98 S.Ct. 1535, 1539-40, 56 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978). Given the Board’s limited resources, and the fact that its jurisdiction encompasses many and varied types of judicial misconduct, this interest is an important one, and unless it can maintain confidentiality while investigating complaints, the Board has no other effective means of preserving flexibility.
I also agree that there is a strong interest in protecting the reputation of judges from unfounded complaints. See Landmark, 435 U.S. at' 835, 98 S.Ct. at 1539. But this interest exerts declining force as the Board concludes that the complaint is worthy of a full hearing. The first step by the Board in its investigative stage is to dismiss frivolous claims. It then informally investigates further, winnowing out other meritless claims, and allowing the judge to comment on charges that appear more substantial. If a complaint remains unresolved, the Board then conducts a formal investigation, after which it decides whether to lodge formal charges requiring an adversary hearing. It is during the investigative stage that, “the meritorious can be separated from the frivolous complaints,” Landmark, 435 U.S. at 835, 98 S.Ct. at 1539. The Board can use confidentiality as a bargaining chip to resolve some complaints without filing formal charges leading to a hearing, and it can further determine which of the non-frivolous complaints are sufficiently substantiated to merit formal charges.
Once these steps have been completed, the concern over premature disclosure of unfounded complaints virtually vanishes. Moreover, to the extent that there is any remaining danger of unfair injury to reputation, it may be answered by a means other than confidentiality — that is, by disclosure of the full transcript of the proceedings, including the basis of the decision to sustain or dismiss the charges. This, of course, was the Board’s practice until the time of this case. Under this procedure, every judge formally accused by the Board but eventually exonerated would be vindicated by the simultaneous disclosure of the transcript. Once the transcript is complete, then, the state can no longer justify its limitations on the right of access, and the press and public, as the district court held, are entitled to inspect the transcript.
In rejecting the Coalition’s claim of access, the majority also engages in a balancing of access interests against confidentiality interests, but it never articulates the standard it applies to this weighing. Without citing authority, it seems to suggest that in evaluating the competing concerns, the Board’s balancing deserves special deference from this Court. Thus it states that “[t]he coalition has failed to show that the right of access it urges is so compelling as to justify the restrictions on the state’s freedom of choice,” ante at 473, and that “[fjederal courts should not overturn a state’s evaluation of structural concerns in the absence of egregious circumstances,” *489ante at 475. With all due respect, this approach turns the constitutional analysis upside down. The basic rule is that once a right of access is found to exist, then the burden falls upon the state to justify its infringement. See Globe, 457 U.S. at 606-07, 102 S.Ct. at 2619-20. Moreover, the Supreme Court has declared that a federal court is required to conduct an independent review of the asserted justifications, according to federal constitutional standards. See Landmark, 435 U.S. at 843, 98 S.Ct. at 1543.
To support its application of a “presumption of validity attaching to state legislative and constitutional provisions,” ante at 475, the majority cites Clements v. Fashing, 457 U.S. 957, 963, 102 S.Ct. 2836, 2843, 73 L.Ed.2d 508 (1982). That decision, however, provides little support for the majority’s approach. Clements dealt with an equal protection challenge to state constitutional limitations on a public official’s ability to become a candidate for another public office. The Supreme Court held that in the absence of special burdens on minority political parties or independent candidates, the state’s classification should be analyzed under a lenient rational basis test, rather than the more demanding “strict scrutiny.” Id. at 963-65, 102 S.Ct. at 2843-45. Thus the Court applied “traditional equal protection principles,” id. at 965, 102 S.Ct. at 2844, developed in a long line of precedents. In this case, by contrast, the asserted right, whose existence is conceded by the majority, is a First Amendment right of access. The majority points to no case allowing for a rational basis review in a First Amendment access case, nor could it; once a right of access is found to exist, any infringement of that right must meet the “compelling interest” test set forth in Globe.
Ultimately, under the First Amendment, any attempt to justify the Board’s position must establish that its current view of confidentiality is necessary to its operation. The majority hints that it believes this, see ante at 476-77, but it does not say so directly. The reason it does not should be clear enough: for its first 15 years, the Board operated without that degree of confidentiality, and there is no evidence that shows any problems as a result. Against such a record, a claim of necessity is anomalous indeed.
IV.
As judges, we instinctively react against public exposure, perhaps because we know the importance of confidentiality to certain aspects of our work, such as decisional conferences. In this context, secrecy is a goal worthy of protecting. But we have no general authority to “protect the court as a mystical entity or the judges as individuals or as annointed priests, set apart from the community and spared the criticism to which in a democracy other public citizens are exposed.” Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 291-92, 62 S.Ct. 190, 207-08, 86 L.Ed. 192 (1941) (Frankfurter, J. dissenting). There is no legal support for the proposition that elected state officials who happen to be judges are entitled, in Judge Poliak’s words, to “total exemption from the slings and arrows which others in the public arena must live with.” 579 F.Supp. at 214. In the final analysis, what is most regrettable about today’s decision is that in the absence of any other convincing rationale, it too will be seen as an example of the judiciary protecting its own interests.7
*490This case comes at a critical time in the history of the judiciary. Judges at both the state and federal level are receiving unprecedented scrutiny not only from the press and public, but also from law enforcement officials. Prosecution of judges for misconduct, unfortunately, has become increasingly common.8 As a result, the public needs assurance that it can continue to rely on the independence and impartiality that are the cornerstone of our judicial system; it needs to know that the non-criminal mechanisms created to monitor judicial conduct are functioning with vigor and effectiveness. In Pennsylvania, the Review Board’s critics cry out that its decisions are based on partiality and self-protection. Nothing could give more credence to these charges than fencing out the public from the Board’s proceedings; and nothing could rebut them more effectively than disclosure where complaints have been denominated by the Board as serious.
Because I believe that the First Amendment requires access to proceedings involving non-frivolous complaints regarding high elected officials, I would affirm the judgment of the district court, and order that the transcript of the hearing be made public.
Judges GIBBONS, SLOVITER and MANSMANN join in this dissent.

. A state statute sets out identical requirements. 42 Pa.Stat. § 3334 (Purdon 1981).

. The concurrence also labels as “extraordinary” three of the five cases in which the record was filed although charges were dismissed, on the ground that one of the judges under investigation had been killed trying to prevent a hold-up. If clearing the name of the deceased judge were the primary motivation, however, that could easily have been accomplished without disclosing the record of the proceedings against all three. Moreover, the Board's executive director testified that only while “Hooking back in retrospect” did he "think [these cases] were special circumstances. I don’t know what their [the Board’s] thinking was at the time the issue of filing or not filing really wasn’t raised.” App. at 222. Like the Board's pleadings in the district court, then, this comment suggests that at the time, filing of the record was viewed as a routine matter.

. We realize, of course, that this position of the Board has been upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, First Amendment Coalition v. Judicial Inquiry and Review Board, 501 Pa. 129, 133, 460 A.2d 722, 724 (1983), and that this decision is binding on us as an interpretation of existing state law. However, under Globe and its progeny, we look to the historical practice in determining the existence of a federal right of access, and it is to that end that we consider the prior history. See infra at 483, 483-485. At the same time, the route by which the Board’s present interpretation of the state Constitution came to be, in the majority's words, "authoritatively established,” ante at 471, is worthy of note. The special counsel retained by the Board issued this interpretation in an opin*483ion. The Coalition appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. That court did not independently construe Article V of the constitution in deciding the appeal; rather, it simply ruled that under the state constitution, the Board is "a constitutionally independent body,” and that it did not have the power to review the Board’s interpretation. Thus, this definitive interpretation of the state constitution is really one lawyer’s opinion, rendered for a client agency.

. When the disciplinary proceedings were before the Board, they provoked heated reactions. See Comment, A First Amendment Right of Access to Judicial Disciplinary Proceedings, 132 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1163, 1165 (1984). The Philadelphia Inquirer was led to editorialize that the *486Board had "been publicly exposed as a self-serving, evidence ignoring, mutual protection society dedicated to the perpetuation of a judicial system whose foundations are beset by moral rot.” May 13, 1983, at 14A, col. 1.

. Of the first 3000 complaints concerning elected judges filed by Pennsylvania citizens, the Board on its own disposed of all but 41. App. at 253-61.

. See, e.g., Chief Justice Jones, State of the Judiciary in the Commonwealth, 44 Pa.B.A.Q. 282, 284 (1973) ("I am happy to note that, in the [first] four years of the Board’s existence, its recommendations, without exception, have been acted upon favorably by our Court.’’) (emphasis added).

. Indeed, the majority seems concerned that recognition of a right of access here might also require access to the proceedings established for disciplining federal judges. Ante at 476. The constitutionality of the federal system, however, is not before this Court; nor would the historical and structural arguments in favor of access be identical in the context of the non-elected federal judiciary. It is, however, upon the basis of such considerations that any claim of access to the federal proceedings should be decided, not upon a conviction that the federal judiciary should be immune from otherwise applicable constitutional standards.
Judge Sloviter would not reach this issue and does not join in this footnote. She notes, however, that she would find it difficult to distinguish between access to proceedings involving state judges and those involving federal judges.

. Accounts in the popular press from the week of January 26, 1986, for example, reflect the growing public and prosecutorial focus on the judiciary. In Philadelphia, the Inquirer began publication of a series of articles exposing improprieties in the city’s courts. See Bissinger and Biddle, Disorder In the Court: Politics and Private Dealings Beset the City’s Justice System. Philadelphia Inquirer. January 26, 1986, at 1A. col. 1. The New York Times reported on the impact of a bribery trial of a federal judge on a small Mississippi town. January 27, 1986, at 8A, col. 2. And USA Today, editorializing that “Judicial corruption is cause for alarm,” devoted a full page to discussion of judicial misconduct; it noted both the number of state court judges under indictment or investigation as well as the fact that only three federal judges had ever been indicted for offenses allegedly committed while on the bench, all three in the past three years. January 27, 1986, at 10A.