Hastings v. Judicial Conference of U.S.
| Decision Date | 13 August 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-5576,84-5576 |
| Citation | 770 F.2d 1093 |
| Parties | The Honorable Alcee L. HASTINGS, U.S. District Judge, Appellant, v. JUDICIAL CONFERENCE OF the UNITED STATES, et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Civil Action No. 83-03850).
Terence J. Anderson, School of Law, Univ. of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla., with whom Robert S. Catz, School of Law, State Univ., Cleveland, Ohio, John W. Karr, Karr & Lyons, Washington, D.C., Joseph J. Huss, Hollywood, Fla., were on brief, for appellant.
John Doar, for appellee, Investigative Committee of the Judicial Council of the 11th Circuit and Brook Hedge, for appellees Dept. of Justice, et al., Washington, D.C., Richard K. Willard, Joseph E. diGenova, Sandra M. Schraibman and Harold J. Krent, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., entered appearances for appellee.
Daniel J. Popeo and George C. Smith, Washington, D.C., were on brief, for Washington Legal Foundation, amicus curiae, urging affirmance.
Before EDWARDS and BORK, Circuit Judges, and McGOWAN, Senior Circuit Judge.
Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge McGOWAN.
Appellant, United States District Judge Alcee L. Hastings, seeks reversal of a judgment by the District Court dismissing his suit to enjoin the continuation of an investigation of his judicial conduct by an investigative committee of the Judicial Council of the Eleventh Circuit. The investigation was initiated pursuant to the Judicial Councils Reform and Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980, 28 U.S.C. Secs. 331, 332, 372(c), 604 (1982) [hereinafter, "the Act"]. Appellees are the Judicial Conference of the United States; the Chief Justice of the United States, in his capacity as presiding officer of the Conference; the Judicial Council of the Eleventh Circuit; the Chief Judge of the Eleventh Circuit; the member-judges of the Investigating Committee; and the Attorney General of the United States.
Appellant's complaint contains four counts. The first alleges that the Act is unconstitutional on separation-of-powers and due process grounds. Count Two asserts that the application of the Act to appellant violates the same constitutional principles. Count Three alleges that the Committee's investigation of Judge Hastings is the result of a conspiracy among judges of the Eleventh Circuit to violate Hastings' constitutional rights. The final count claims that appellant's rights under the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552a (1982), have been violated in connection with the investigation. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court rejected the challenge in Count One to the For the reasons hereinafter appearing, we hold that, at the time the District Court rendered its decision, adjudication of Counts One and Two was premature. We therefore vacate the District Court's grant of summary judgment to appellees on Count One and affirm the District Court's dismissal of Count Two. We also affirm the District Court's dismissal of Counts Three and Four, although, as with Count Two, our reasons for holding these counts properly dismissed differ from those offered by the District Court.
facial validity of the Act. The Court dismissed Counts Two and Three as unreviewable under the explicit terms of the Act. Finally, the Court dismissed the Privacy Act count for failure to state a cognizable claim.
The Act established a formal mechanism by which federal judges could be disciplined by fellow judges for "conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts." 28 U.S.C. Sec. 372(c)(1). "Any person" alleging such conduct on the part of a judge may set that mechanism in motion by filing with the clerk of the circuit in which the judge sits a complaint containing a "brief statement of the facts constituting such conduct." Id. The clerk of the court must then transmit the complaint to the chief judge of the circuit (or to the next most senior active service judge of that circuit, if the chief judge is the subject of the complaint), as well as to the judge who has been named in the complaint. The chief judge, after "expeditiously reviewing a complaint," id. Sec. 372(c)(3), may take any of several courses of action. He may dismiss the complaint if it either (1) fails to conform with the requirements for a complaint stated above, or (2) directly relates to the merits of a decision or procedural ruling, or (3) is frivolous. Id. Sec. 372(c)(3)(A). The chief judge may also conclude the proceeding if he finds that "appropriate corrective action has been taken." Id. Sec. 372(c)(3)(B).
If the chief judge neither dismisses the complaint nor concludes the action, he must appoint a special committee, consisting of himself plus equal members of circuit and district judges of the circuit, to investigate the facts and allegations contained in the complaint. Id. Sec. 372(c)(4). The Act grants the committee the power to conduct an investigation "as extensive as it considers necessary." Id. Sec. 372(c)(5).
When the committee has completed its investigation, it is required to file with the judicial council of the circuit 1 "a comprehensive written report ... present[ing] both the findings of the investigation and the committee's recommendations for necessary and appropriate action by the judicial council of the circuit." Id. Sec. 372(c)(5). Upon receiving the committee's report, the circuit judicial council may conduct any additional investigation it considers necessary. In addition, the judicial council "shall take such action as is appropriate to assure the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts within the circuit." Id. Sec. 372(c)(6)(B). Such action may include requesting that the judge voluntarily retire; ordering that, "on a temporary basis for a time certain," no further cases be assigned to the judge; and public or private censuring of the judge. Id.
Rather than take such action itself, however, the judicial council has the option of referring a complaint, along with the record of any proceedings undertaken to that point and the council's recommendations for appropriate action, to the Judicial Conference of the United States. Id. Sec. 372(c)(7)(A). 2 The Act also requires Having had proceedings transferred to it from a circuit judicial council via either of the above paths, the Judicial Conference, "after consideration of the prior proceedings and such additional investigation as it considers appropriate," id. Sec. 372(c)(8), shall, by majority vote, take any of the courses of action, described above, that were open to the judicial council. In addition, if the Conference determines--either on its own or upon review of the judicial council's determination--that consideration of impeachment may be warranted, it shall transmit its determination to the United States House of Representatives "for whatever action the House of Representatives considers to be necessary." Id.
transfer to the Judicial Conference of any case in which the circuit judicial council determines, on the basis of a complaint and an investigation under this subsection, or on the basis of "information otherwise available to the council," id. Sec. 372(c)(7)(B), that a judge has engaged in conduct that either (1) might constitute one or more grounds for impeachment under Article I of the Constitution, or (2) "in the interest of justice, is not amenable to resolution by the judicial council." Id
In any investigation undertaken pursuant to the Act, the investigating body, be it the special committee, the circuit judicial council, or the Conference, is vested with full subpoena powers. Id. Sec. 372(c)(9)(A), (B); see id. Secs. 331, 332(d). The Act also gives each such body the power to prescribe rules for the conduct of its proceedings, although such rules must provide certain minimum procedural safeguards. 3
The Act expressly limits the availability of review of orders and determinations made under the Act. See 28 U.S.C. Sec. 372(c)(10). A petition for review may be filed with the circuit judicial council by a complainant or judge aggrieved by an order of the chief judge, pursuant to Sec. 372(c)(3), dismissing a complaint or concluding a proceeding, see supra p. 1095. An aggrieved complainant or judge may also petition the Judicial Conference for review of action taken by the judicial council pursuant to Sec. 372(c)(6). With these two exceptions, "all orders and determinations, including denials of petitions for review, shall be final and conclusive and shall not be judicially reviewable on appeal or otherwise." Id. at Sec. 372(c)(10).
As a description of the proceedings so far will reveal, little of the Act has as yet come into play. On December 29, 1981, a federal grand jury indicted appellant, a district judge in the Southern District of Florida since 1979. The indictment charged appellant with conspiracy to solicit and accept money in return for being influenced in his performance of official acts as a United States district judge. The indictment further alleged that appellant had informed his co-conspirator, one William Borders, of the substance and date of issue of a forthcoming judicial order and that Borders had in turn passed the information on to a person he believed to be a defendant in the case involved.
After an unsuccessful motion to quash the indictment on the ground that the sole means of punishing a judge for high crimes and misdemeanors is impeachment by Congress, appellant was brought to trial. His co-conspirator had already been convicted of the conspiracy counts in a separate trial On March 17, 1983, two federal district judges filed with the Eleventh Circuit a complaint under Sec. 372 of the Act, charging that appellant had engaged in...
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