This morning I sat in my living room and watched a rerun of the Judiciary Committee hearing of last Friday on CTN. From what I heard, after this hearing, the Committee pretty much voted almost unanimously for all the nominated judges. Judge Shelden, whose nomination was controversial among advocates, only had three votes against him.
Altogether, from votes like that, it seems as though the whole process is basically rubber stamping. To a certain extent, it was hardly worth my time or anyone else's time to bother to come and provide testimony. I do think I benefited from watching the process and having the opportunity to meet with legislators and fellow advocates during the breaks. However, I doubt I will go to such a hearing again.
Let me give you a little background on your opportunities as citizens during hearings held by the State Legislature. Members of the public have the opportunity to speak at hearings like this. If you are interested in doing so, you have to sign up before the hearing. If there are going to be a considerable number of folks hoping to provide testimony at a particular hearing, then you are going to want to come really early in the morning to be sure you have the opportunity to speak.
Your testimony can only be three minutes in length. Once you go over three minutes, the bell rings and you have to stop, unless the Chair of the Committee allows you to continue. During the Judiciary Committee hearings where so few people wished to speak, everyone had a chance to go beyond the 3 minute limit.
Along with your verbal testimony you provide before the committee, you are also supposed to provide 45 typed copies of your testimony to the committee, which is made available to members of the Committee and made available to the public online.
I was notified so late about these hearings that I was unable to prepare my testimony for submission. I then spoke to an Administrative Assistant to the Judiciary Committee at the Legislative Office Building (LOB). She told me I could email my testimony to her and she would post it on the Judicial Committee website.
Getting back to the hearings, Rep. Minnie Gonzalez seemed to be the point person for bring up complaints about the various judges and the systems that hold them accountable. She asked the tough questions. For example, she asked the question of why Judicial Review Council always dismisses complaints against judges.
She is mostly correct about that. I have investigated the point and historically out of approximately 100 grievance complaints annually, only one or two are acted upon. Recently, I received a form letter in response to complaints that I had submitted to the Judicial Review Council which indicates to me they probably didn't even look at them.
However, if any citizen sent in a complaint about any of the nominees coming before the Committee, then members of the Committee did ask very pointed questions of the nominee about it. Also, the Committee asked specific questions about any complaints about a nominee that citizens sent to the Judiciary Review Council whether they were dismissed or not. Also, the nominees had to fill out a questionaire in advance of the hearing and question #18 of that document asked them to acknowledge any complaints against them. So it isn't as though the Committee was ignoring complaints. They did challenge the judges on them. It's just that such complaints clearly had no impact on the final votes on the nominees.
Representative Gonzalez also made the point to the nominees for judge trial referee that sometimes the advanced age of the judges prevents them from absorbing all the information they are receiving in court. She said she is not prejudiced about age, but Judges do have to realize that they are having a significant impact on peoples' lives and if they are too old to do the job, they should have the insight to recognize that. In addition, she mentioned that she had come to watch some of the nominees in their Courtrooms and she said it sometimes looked as though they were sleeping. Still, again, despite these criticisms, the judges were voted in pretty much unanimously.
Thinking about these hearings, I was amazed at how many empty seats there were throughout the proceedings. There are 45 members on this Committee, but during the majority of the hearings only 6 to 8 legislators were participating. Of course, I understand that there are other hearings taking place simultaneous to this hearing, but you would think that more people than that would show up for these nominations. On the other hand, since these hearings, as I've said, appear to consist of nothing more than a rubber stamping of Governor Malloy's nominations, why bother?
The legislators there were Representative Ronald Coleman who co-chaired the meeting, providing a very dignified and intelligent presence, along with Representative Gerald Fox. I am noticing that Rep. Fox has been honored for his work by the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence (CCADV). He is a member of the Speaker's Task Force on Domestic Violence and was central to sponsoring a new law protecting the victims of domestic violence which took effect on October 1, 2011.
Rep. Minnie Gonzalez continued with her challenges throughout the hearings, even bringing up the point which all of us have thought of that the Judiciary Committee is largely made up of attorneys who will later practice before the judges whose nominations they will confirm. No matter what, State Senator Edward Meyer, the Assistant Majority Leader, made it a point to smile a lot at each judge and say, "Thank you for your service."
Senator Edwin A. Gomes, the Deputy Majority Leader asked several questions about foreclosure and mediation proceedings. He is also Chair of the Select committee on Housing. When members of the public came to provide testimony regarding their problems with their homes, he told them to check in with his office and he would help them later. That appeared to be a very caring and thoughtful response.
Representative Ernest Hewett was very kind in acknowledging how difficult it is for self represented parties to defend themselves in the courtroom, entering a completely unfamiliar environment, and being expected to act according to a whole new set of rules. He acknowledged that most people don't want to represent themselves, but are often forced to because of many different circumstances, including a lack of finances. I thought that was very kind of him because it often seems as though lawmakers and attorneys assume that self represented parties are in some way bad, or trying to take advantage of the system, when there is no reason to believe that.
As a final point, out of all the nominations for new judges, I was very impressed by Judge Sybil Richard, formerly Deputy Corporation Counsel for the City of Stamford, who was nominated for a permanent position as judge on the Superior Court. I'm really excited by the strengths of character and intellect that she is bringing to her position as judge.
As an aside, related to issues regarding judges and their behavior, for anyone else who is interested there was a Judicial Performance Evaluation Program Advisory Panel Subcommittee on Bias which held its first meeting on July 7, 2011 with media present and a lot of fanfare. It met again a second time for what turned out to be a final meeting on September 7, 2011 without any media and only one member of the public. Apparently, it was expected to report its recommendations to the full Judicial Performance Program (JPEP) Advisory Panel at a meeting scheduled for October 2011. You have to wonder whether its mandate was only to have those two meetings, or whether once the public fanfare was over, the subcomittee ended up being cancelled.
Ten to one the meeting of this subcommittee was a lot of hoopla that led to nothing of consequence. And my problem is that too many people are satisfied with hoopla rather than system changes of real consequence. As citizens, we need to hold our judges and our legislators more accountable. If you don't like judicial bias, if you don't like legislators rubber stamping eight more years of abusive judges, then think about what you can do personally to do something about it.
Corrected: Use of term Judiary Review Committee was incorrect. Should have used the term Judiciary Committee. All instances of this type have been corrected.
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