Court Opinion

ID: 9662873
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:20:38.849857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:43.462417
License: Public Domain

Tom Glaze, Justice, concurring. I concur. Our May 14, 1990 order, amending Rule 7, was a remedial, procedural change that did away with the Commission’s power to impose a private reprimand against a judge. In place of the private reprimand remedy, the rule provided that, when the Commission takes any official action with respect to a complaint about a judge, the matter shall become public information. .Neither of these two procedural rules vested a right to a particular remedy in any judge or, for that matter, in anyone else. However, judges were afforded different procedures or remedies, one private and the second public, depending on whether their cases were filed before or after May 14, 1990. In this connection, the new Rule 7 supplies what we determined to be a more appropriate remedy when the Commission investigates and acts with respect to existing rights or obligations concerning allegations of misconduct of a judge. Of course, that misconduct may have occurred prior to May 14, 1990, but, being procedural, the new rule applies only to those cases filed after it became effective. See Harrison v. Matthews, 235 Ark. 915, 362 S.W.2d 704 (1962). However, cases that had been filed with the Commission prior to the May 14, 1990 procedural change are controlled by the old Rule 7 and its private reprimand remedy. Here appellant seeks application of the new Rule 7 procedure to cases filed prior to the new Rule’s effective date. The court simply is unable to make such an application and therefore must deny the appellant’s request.