Colorado Colorado Supreme Court releases memo citing examples of sex-discrimination, judicial misconduct that led to alleged contract for silence denverpost.com · by David Migoya February 9, 2021 https://www.denverpost.com/2021/02/09/colorado-supreme-court-memo-sex-discrimination- harassment-lawsuit/
Destruction of evidence, payoffs to keep harassment victims silent and repeated efforts to simply look the other way are among dozens of allegations of judicial and official misconduct that have permeated the highest reaches of Colorado’s Judicial Department for years, according to an internal memo obtained by The Denver Post that threatened to divulge it all.
The two-page memo lays out what former Judicial Department chief of staff Mindy Masias was prepared to make public — reaching all the way to the state’s Court of Appeals and its Supreme Court — in a sex- discrimination lawsuit if she was fired, former State Court Administrator Christopher Ryan told The Post.
The memo alleges Masias was told to destroy a letter anonymously alleging sexism and harassment against the chief justice and another high-ranking employee; that “per the chief justice” a law clerk to the Court of Appeals was given a settlement agreement after she made harassment allegations in order to keep a jurist “safe” during selection to the Supreme Court; that the chief justice “took no action” against a district judge who sent pornography over judicial email and was later appointed as a chief judge in a judicial district.
It also lays out how female employees are mistreated, ignored or simply terminated at rates far higher than men. Even the chief justice told Masias in a secretly taped meeting that women “need to dress less like a woman and more like an attorney on 17th Street.”
The high court chose Monday to release the memo it had earlier refused to make public and called for its own independent investigation into its contents.
“We believe this is the correct course of action – both to determine any actual wrongdoing and to clear those wrongly accused,” the court said in a memo sent Monday night by Chief Justice Brian Boatright to judges and judicial employees statewide.
The memo is at the core of a controversy in which Ryan – who held the highest-ranking non-judicial position in Colorado’s court system – told The Post that Masias was given a lucrative contract to avoid her making public the contents of the memo.
Masias received the $2.5 million five-year contract to provide the department with judicial leadership training in early 2019 despite facing firing over financial irregularities, Ryan said.
The deal was approved by then-Chief Justice Nathan “Ben” Coats and later canceled after a Denver Post investigation uncovered the contract and how it was awarded. The details behind the contract, however, were first revealed by The Post last week, and the memo released late Monday.
The memo authored by former human resources director Eric Brown, lays out 27 bullet items that include instances where, among other things, “judges were NOT held to the ‘tone at the top’ but who violated policy significantly,” and similar conduct by other top-level managers.
It included a judge who sent a pornographic video over judicial email. “The video depicts a woman performing sexual acts on a bald man’s head” and the judge “suffered no repercussions,” the memo alleged, saying the matter was turned “over to the Chief Justice who took no action.”
In another it said a “judge exposed and rubbed his hairy chest on a female employee’s back” and no action was taken. The unnamed judge, “is currently being considered for the senior judge program.” The memo was authored in December 2018.
In a one-page email to judges and judicial department personnel statewide Monday night, the state Supreme Court said the seven justices reviewed the document for the first time Monday and decided to turn it over to Colorado Auditor Dianne Ray’s office for an inquiry it is conducting, as well as call for a separate investigation.
“We are retaining the services of an outside investigator to conduct an independent review of all the allegations mentioned in the memo,” the court’s email says. “We will also ask the investigator to make recommendations as to any actions needed regarding the incidents alleged and to offer suggestions to support our ongoing efforts to improve our handling of personnel matters.”
Ryan resigned amid a Denver Post investigation into the Masias contract, which Ryan canceled before stepping down. The contract was given to Masias’ company, The Leadership Practice, after officials in the court — including then-Chief Justice Nathan “Ben” Coats — agreed to the deal, forgoing any tell-all lawsuit, according to Ryan.
Court officials have denied the deal was a quid-pro-quo and meant to silence anything Masias hoped to reveal.
“We steadfastly deny that the decision to enter into a contract with The Leadership Practice was motivated in any way by a desire to keep information about the department quiet,” the justices said in Monday’s email sent by Chief Justice Brian Boatright at 7:12 p.m.
Boatright replaced Coats when he retired Dec. 31, 2020.
“In their categorical denial last week, the Judicial Department stated that the Supreme Court was fully aware of all related facts as they unfolded over the last two years,” Ryan said late Monday. “Now tonight, the court issued a statement indicating that they decided to release the memo after viewing it for the first time. With this acknowledgment, I am astounded that they can continue to steadfastly deny any connection between the memo and the issuance of that contract.”
The Colorado Attorney General’s Office for weeks refused The Post’s requests to release the memo, saying it was protected from disclosure. The Judicial Department operates under its own rules of public records apart from the Colorado Open Records Act, which applies to the remainder of state government.
Ryan characterized the conduct as “gut-wrenching” and “reprehensible.”
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“Once again, I stand by the statements I have given and look forward to any investigation uncovering all of the details,” Ryan said.
The memo also outlined unpunished misdeeds apart from judges. It describes how a probation department official took a “picture of penis and sends to vendor; no disciplinary action taken,” as well as a probation official having “sex with a vendor on state time and on state property who later complains she felt she had to in order to keep her job; no disciplinary action taken.”
It said two judges faced Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints, and when Masias recommended to a chief judge that it was “in the best interest of the branch” to fire an employee “due to sexual relationships he had with his staff,” the judge “stated that Mindy needed ‘to leave the courthouse and drive slowly out of town.'”
Masias faced firing over financial irregularities in late 2018, but instead she was granted more than $35,000 in sick time and other time off she took, as well as the training contract. Ryan came forward with details behind the contract after a state audit of the State Court Administrator’s Office put much of the blame on him and offered little in terms of details surrounding the contract.
Coats, Masias and Brown have not spoken publicly about Ryan’s assertions.
“We believe this is the correct course of action — both to determine any actual wrongdoing and to clear those wrongly accused,” the Supreme Court memo said. “We feel strongly that this transparency, coupled with an independent investigation, is the best way to review every allegation and ensure that any lingering issues are addressed.”
The memo released Monday also outlines details from a secret tape recording Masias made of then- Chief Justice Nancy Rice explaining why Masias, then the department’s chief of staff, was not hired for the top administrator’s job.
The memo quotes Rice saying several reasons why Masias didn’t get the job including: “You don’t look the part;” “You’re a small woman;” “There’s sexism out there still, even in the government. If you don’t think there is, you’re wrong.”
The memo also pointed out a number of discrepancies with how men and women are treated in the department, including: How Masias was the only woman to hold one of seven division director positions; how 73% of all terminated employees are women; how women were promoted at slower rates than men despite higher performance ratings; how the court refused to create an affirmative action plan.
Masias “was told by Chief Judges she needed to seek their permission to conduct harassment and discrimination investigations in (judicial) districts,” the memo notes. “This directive was given in order to suppress complaints.”
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Colorado Judicial discipline largely handled in “darkness” in Colorado, with most states offering greater transparency denverpost.com · by Noelle Phillips February 14, 2021 https://www.denverpost.com/2021/02/14/colorado-judicial-discipline-compare-other-states/
The three-minute video posted on the Florida Supreme Court’s website shows the moment a judge, dressed in her black robes, put her hands on the shoulders of a courthouse employee and briefly shook him.
The video, along with 62 documents that outline the judicial misconduct case against Circuit Judge Vegina T. Hawkins, became public record in July 2019 once the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission began formal disciplinary proceedings against the judge. Hawkins lost her re-election bid in 2020, and the disciplinary case was dismissed. But as the case wound through the state’s formal disciplinary process, the public could follow along.
Florida is one of 26 states where confidentiality for a judge accused of misconduct ends once formal charges are filed by a disciplinary commission. Other states with similar practices include California, Kansas and Washington. Another seven states make the cases public once the accused has a chance to respond to the allegations, and two more states allow the public to watch hearings but don’t reveal any details until then, according to the Center for Judicial Discipline at the National Center for State Courts.
But Colorado is one of 15 states where disciplinary cases against judges are secret until a recommendation for a public punishment is ordered. In most cases, however, Colorado judges are disciplined through informal proceedings that end with a private disciplinary decision.
“There’s no other state that is as dark as Colorado,” said Chris Forsyth, executive director of The Judicial Integrity Project, which pushes for judicial disciplinary reform in Colorado.
The state’s judicial disciplinary proceedings came under scrutiny last week after the Colorado Supreme Court released a previously secret memo that cited multiple examples of sexual misconduct and harassment by judges, allegations that reached the highest levels of the Colorado Judicial Department. The memo was released after a series of articles in The Denver Post about allegations a former human resources administrator threatened to tell everything she knew in exchange for a $2.5 million contract. The contract has been dissolved.
In Colorado, complaints against judges remain confidential until the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline recommends public discipline. Twelve other states have similar laws, including New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Only three states — Delaware, Hawaii and North Carolina — keep discipline a secret until a court orders it to become public, according to the National Center for State Courts Center for Judicial Discipline.
Forsyth has pushed for years for change, saying judges are public servants, and their misdeeds deserve public scrutiny.
“There’s no other reason for this darkness other than to undermine the trust and confidence of judges in Colorado,” he said.
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Transparency varies from state to state. Some commissions such as Florida’s post documents as cases move through proceedings, some issue news releases about decisions and some issue orders along with board member’s opinions on why they determined discipline was warranted. Nowhere in the United States can the public see a list of formal complaints against judges, said Cynthia Gray, director of the Center for Judicial Ethics at the National Center for State Courts.
“That would be true in every state,” Gray said. “You just can’t go in and look at them.”
But many states offer more information to the public than in Colorado.
In Arkansas, for example, the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission published a news release in May announcing a judge had resigned and was barred from serving again after he was caught receiving sexual photographs — and asking for more — from a woman facing charges in his courtroom. In Colorado, if a judge resigned before a disciplinary decision, it’s likely the allegation never would become public.
In Minnesota, a judge in March was publicly reprimanded for failing to appropriately supervise a law clerk, approving inaccurate time cards and sending inappropriate email messages about attorneys arguing in her courtroom. Judicial reprimands in Colorado remain confidential.
The Colorado Supreme Court memo released last week listed specific examples of judicial misconduct, but it’s impossible to know if disciplinary action was instigated or whether anyone was at least reprimanded or censured.
A few of the instances discussed in the memo include:
A judge sent a pornographic email over judicial email and still was promoted to a chief judge position A law clerk was given a release agreement to protect a court of appeals judge from harassment accusations during the Supreme Court selection process Another judge took off his shirt and rubbed his chest hair on a female employee and no action was taken. None of those instances are available for review on the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline’s website. That could mean those judges were considered for discipline and none was given. Or they were privately admonished, reprimanded or censured. Or the commission may never have received those cases for review.
William Campbell, executive director of the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline, said it would “verge on breaching confidentiality” if he confirmed whether any of those incidents came before the commission. However, in a Friday news release, the commission said it had “reviewed its records spanning the last five years and has not been able to identify a referral from the State Court Administrator’s Office or the Office of the Chief Justice that appears to match the limited details reported publicly.”
The commission only investigates the cases it knows about and if no one complains to the commission, no case is considered. And no changes in law can fix a culture where formal complaints of misbehavior are not made.
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Amending the Constitution The memo’s contents captured the attention of the Colorado General Assembly with Senate President Leroy Garcia, D-Pueblo, and House Speaker Alec Garnett, D-Denver, calling for an investigation. Garcia also told The Post that legislators are considering holding hearings or forming committees to examine the situation.
But the legislature cannot single-handedly change how judicial discipline is handled.
In 1966, Colorado voters amended the state Constitution to create the judicial discipline commission and to establish rules on how it would function. So the secrecy is embedded in the state Constitution.
Campbell said when he first accepted the job leading the commission he met with a Supreme Court liaison who said, “Bill, you’ve got a confidential job that needs more transparency.”
Since Campbell was hired, the commission created a website where visitors can read annual reports and find brief summaries of disciplinary cases. But the commission is limited on what it can reveal.
To eliminate such secrecy, voters would have to approve a ballot measure that would change the state Constitution. That would mean the legislature would have to approve a general election ballot referendum. Or someone could lead a ballot initiative, meaning an organization or individuals would have to pay for an expensive drive to collect enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot.
“It’s non-partisan and no one benefits more than another so no one wants to put money into it,” Forsyth said.
States with more transparent judicial discipline procedures are typically states where judges are elected and must run partisan political campaigns, Campbell said. In Colorado, a commission nominates judicial candidates to the governor, who then appoints them to the bench. After that, voters decide whether to retain judges, but those judges don’t campaign for the yes or no votes.
“As a general principle the states that have a very selective nominating process tend to have less complaints about judges,” Campbell said. “We hope to handle them in a constructive way. If it’s terrible, it becomes public.”
Campbell says the confidentiality also protects those who file complaints since judges hold a lot of power.
“When people talk to me or write to me about ethics concerns with a judge they’re often terrified the judge will find out,” he said.
More confidentiality? Even in states where judicial discipline is more open, the decision-makers sometimes find themselves opining for more confidentiality.
Earlier this month, Superior Court Judge David S. Keenan in King County, Washington, was admonished for participating in an advertisement on city buses for North Seattle College. His picture and the wording, “A Superior Court Judge, David Keenan got into law in part to advocate for marginalized
6 communities. David’s changing the World. He started at North,” were printed on the buses in August 2019.
But the ad ran afoul of state judicial ethics canons because it “can reasonably be read to express a preference or commitment in favor of marginalized communities,” according to the Washington Commission on Judicial Conduct’s decision and order, which is posted on its website. The bus ads also could be viewed as campaign advertisements.
Keenan, according to the documents, was a high school dropout who eventually earned his GED and multiple other degrees at the college and is a strong supporter of its mission. He also has a reputation as a community volunteer who promotes access to diversity and equality in the law.
The decision tore at the commission’s members, leading one to write an “opinion dissenting in part” to say she wished the commission was not legally bound to make the admonishment public.
“I would greatly prefer that the Commission was able to write Judge Keenan a private cautionary letter, sparing him the stress, expense and embarrassment of a public Commission proceeding,” Sherry Appleton wrote. “The State Constitutional provision that governs this Commission does not currently allow such a private sanction, however, and perhaps that is something that the legislature and the public can reexamine.”
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Colorado Judicial discipline body finds no records of misconduct alleged by former employee coloradopolitics.com · by MICHAEL KARLIK [email protected] https://www.coloradopolitics.com/courts/judicial-discipline-body-finds-no-records-of-misconduct- alleged-by-former-employee/article_13cf6832-6daa-11eb-8b05-cb26a4da4ad4.html
The body that receives and probes allegations of misconduct by judges says it was in the dark about the claims of a former judicial employee about misbehavior and harassment from judges going unaddressed and uninvestigated.
"The Commission has reviewed its records spanning the last 5 years and has not been able to identify a referral from the State Court Administrator’s Office or the office of the Chief Justice that appears to match the limited details reported publicly," the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline said in a statement issued on Friday.
The admission comes after The Denver Post and The Gazette reported that Mindy Masias, the former chief of staff in the State Court Administrator's Office, had listed in a memo authored by the Judicial Department's human resources director several undated instances of harassment, sexism and workplace misconduct that prompted no investigation.
"Judge exposed and rubbed his hairy chest on a female employee's back; no action taken," the memo reads. "Judge sends pornographic video over judicial email; nothing happened to him."
Although the commission indicated it had reviewed five years of records to no avail, Masias' tenure with the Judicial Department exceeded that window. A departmental news release from 2004 indicated Masias was human resources manager at the time.
"Going forward, we are committed to learning more about these allegations, through referrals from independent investigations that have been announced and/or through our own efforts. As always, the Commission will carry out its Constitutional responsibilities," the statement continued.
The state constitution empowers the commission with responding to requests for evaluation regarding judicial misconduct. It also mandates confidentiality of proceedings until and unless the state Supreme Court decides to issue a public censure. There were two judges subject to public censure in 2019, with other unnamed judges receiving private admonishments or corrective action.
Masias reportedly threatened to reveal the allegations described in the memo, but instead the department awarded her an approximately $2.72 million contract, which is now the subject of a state audit. Then-Chief Justice Nathan B. Coats approved the arrangement, the former top court administrator told The Post.
Masias also listed several examples of "systemic" sexual harassment and discrimination against women, and the memo explains that chief judges in the state's judicial districts told her that she needed permission from them to conduct misconduct investigations in their jurisdictions.
"This directive was given in order to suppress complaints," the memo notes.
More information
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Lawyers, judges ask for investigations, reform following judicial scandal After reports emerged that the Judicial Department and Colorado’s former chief justice awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to an employee to prevent her from disclosing incidents of workplace misconduct and sex discrimination, multiple legal associations and judges are now urging an inquiry.
Colorado judicial system makes public memo detailing alleged misconduct in alleged hush money contract Memo detailing alleged judicial misconduct, sexual harassment also describes sexist workplace Q&A | A conversation about judicial discipline, transparency and culture in the wake of Colorado revelations
Michael Karlik, Colorado Politics coloradopolitics.com · by MICHAEL KARLIK [email protected]
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Michigan Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission names first Black woman as chair detroitnews.com https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/01/12/michigan-judicial-panel-names- first-black-woman-chair/6642762002/
The Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission has appointed Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Karen Fort Hood as chair, making her the first Black woman to head the panel, the JTC announced Tuesday.
The Judicial Tenure Commission is an independent state agency responsible for investigating Michigan judges and addressing ethics, judicial misconduct and incapacity against them.
The late Michigan Appeals Court Judge Harold Hood, who was chair of the commission from 1988-1990, was the first and only other African-American to chair the lead the panel in its 52-year history. Karen Fort Hood and Harold Hood are not related to one another.
This is the second time Karen Fort Hood has broken racial barriers as a judge. In November 2002, she became the first Black woman be elected to the Michigan Court of Appeals. A former Detroit Public Schools teacher and probation officer, Hood was elected to the former Detroit Recorder’s Court bench in 1992.
Other appointments announced Tuesday by the JTC include the election of Judge Jon Hulsing, who sits on the Ottawa County Circuit Court, as vice chair and attorney JameBurdick, who was elected as commission secretary.
Hood, Hulsing and Burdick will serve for two years.
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