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EDITORIAL
Commission on Judicial Performance Fails to Perform
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he Commission on Judicial Performance yesterday, in its annual report, told of a private admonishment having been issued last year in this instance:
“An appellate justice delayed decision in several matters by issuing opinions more than three years after each case was fully briefed and assigned to the justice, in one matter. The delay resulted in actual prejudice to a party who was incarcerated unnecessarily.”
For the commission to lend anonymity to a jurist whose conduct is so egregious as to cast doubt as to his or her fitness for office is, in our view, scandalous.
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rt, VI, §19 of the California Constitution sets forth:
“A judge of a court of record may not receive the salary for the judicial office held by the judge while any cause before the judge remains pending and undetermined for 90 days after it has been submitted for decision.”
And Government Code §68210 provides:
“No judge of a court of record shall receive his salary unless he shall make and subscribe before an officer entitled to administer oaths, an affidavit stating that no cause before him remains pending and undetermined for 90 days after it has been submitted for decision.”
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nless Justice X went without a salary during the years when cases assigned to him or her went undecided—which appears unlikely—or cases were re-submitted every 90 days (which would have been noticed and would itself have constituted misconduct by all justices participating) it means that the jurist swore each month to be in compliance with the 90-day rule, thereby committing perjury. That’s a felony.
This is not a matter where the CJP can justifiably do no more than wag its finger at the justice, and keep his or her identity a secret.
What of the other members of the division or undivided district in which Justice X sits? Did they submit perjured monthly declarations saying that no cases had been pending before them for more than 90 days?
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ven if Justice X had been assigned to author the opinion in a given case, upon a failure to do so, was it not incumbent on the presiding justice to have someone else on the panel get an opinion written? Or is Justice X the presiding justice?
And how could it be that a justice “delayed decision in several matters by issuing opinions more than three years after each case was fully briefed”? The delays by the justice should have been brought to the attention of the commission and acted upon by it well before the expiration of any three-year period. Was the presiding justice of the district or division—or the associate justices—dilatory in reporting Justice X’s dereliction, or was the commission laggardly in acting—or both?
The Commission on Judicial Performance needs investigating, and the underlying facts warrant a probe. Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero should start the ball rolling.
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