A new office of judicial discipline — independent of the Colorado Supreme Court that currently presides over it — would be created under a sweeping Senate bill that includes a yearlong legislative inquiry into whether the process of investigating jurists has been effective or not.
Citing more than two years of jarring newspaper reports about allegations of covered-up judicial misconduct and other improprieties that resulted in several resignations and at least six investigations, bill sponsors said it was “important to establish a commission on judicial discipline that is independent from the judges and justices who are subject to the commission’s oversight.”
Senate Bill 22-201 would dissolve the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline that sits within the Judicial Department and create the new independent body with $400,000 in initial funding from the state’s general fund. Currently the commission is funded from attorney registration fees doled out by the Supreme Court.
The current discipline commission is made up of 10 people — four judges appointed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, two lawyers and four citizens appointed by the governor.
Although the bill doesn’t take aim at the makeup of the new body, an investigative commission made up of four state senators and four state representatives will spend a year looking into whether that should change, especially whether the supreme court should continue to control which judges serve on it.
That legislative panel will also study more than a dozen other aspects of the commission and how it does its job — particularly whether the supreme court gets to decide whether a judge is disciplined or not. The commission currently only recommends discipline and gives that recommendation to the supreme court to decide any punishment.
Most judicial discipline is kept secret although public sanctions can be issued.
Bill sponsors Sen. Pete Lee, a Democrat, and Republican Sen. Bob Gardner, both from Colorado Springs, were part of a group of legislators and other state officials who last year drafted the requests for proposals from companies to investigate the cover-up allegations. The two companies selected began their work last fall.
At the root of the legislation are allegations the Judicial Department in 2019 gave a $2.5 million contract to a former department official who was being fired but threatened a tell-all sex-discrimination lawsuit that would offer details of judicial misbehavior that had gone unpunished for years. The contract was allegedly approved by then-Chief Justice Nathan “Ben” Coats. He and the other justices were aware of a memo that contained the allegations of misbehavior that was to be included in the threatened lawsuit, according to depositions from a different lawsuit.
“Today we introduced a bill to create a judicial discipline office in Colorado which is independent financially and functionally from the judicial branch,” Lee said in a statement to The Denver Gazette. “An independent judiciary is foundational to a democratic republic and indispensable to maintaining public confidence in the judiciary.”
The bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Weissman, D-Aurora, who chairs the House judiciary committee. Lee chairs the Senate’s judiciary committee.
In January, members of the judicial discipline commission, a normally secretive group that rarely makes public appearances, spoke to legislators about troubles they were having investigating the alleged cover-up. Specifically, the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, which controls the commission’s funding, would not pay for lawyers the commission hired to investigate.
The OARC is controlled by the Supreme Court.
The commission members also said the high court was attempting to control how it did its job and what it could investigate, despite a state Constitution that mandates its independence.
Although the OARC also hired outside lawyers to investigate the circumstances around the contract and alleged cover-up, it would not share its findings with the commission. Additionally, the two companies hired by the Judicial Department to investigate are reporting directly to the department and not sharing any of the materials it gathers with any other investigator.
The bill also would require the three stages of review that a judge goes through — a nominating commission, a performance review commission for retention, and the disciplinary body — to share whatever information they have that would be pertinent to the work of the other.
Currently, a judge appearing before a performance review body for re-election could receive a sterling review because disciplinary information that is kept secret might not be shared with it. Or information about a judge’s alleged misconduct might come before the performance commission and not be shared with the disciplinary body.
Additionally, they bill would require the new disciplinary office to annually let legislators know the demographics of disciplined judges in an effort to combat any potential bias.
One of six investigations into the contract and alleged cover-up has already made recommendations for a criminal inquiry. The others are at various stages of completion and expected to culminate sometime this summer.
David is a Senior Investigative Reporter at The Gazette and has worked in Colorado for more than two decades. His work has been recognized by, among others, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Scripps Howard Foundation, the Society of Business Editors and Writers, the National Association of Real Estate Editors, at the National Headliner Awards. He has worked at publications in New York City, St. Louis, Detroit and Denver over a journalism career that began in 1982.
