Maze v. Ky. Judicial Conduct Comm'n

• Decision Date: 13 June 2019
• Docket Number: 2018-SC-000633-RR
• Citation: 575 S.W.3d 204
• Parties: Beth Lewis MAZE, Circuit Judge, Movant v. KENTUCKY JUDICIAL CONDUCT COMMISSION, Respondent
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

575 S.W.3d 204

Beth Lewis MAZE, Circuit Judge, Movant

v.KENTUCKY JUDICIAL CONDUCT COMMISSION, Respondent

2018-SC-000633-RR

Supreme Court of Kentucky.

June 13, 2019

OPINION AND ORDER

Acting through an attorney, Judge Beth Lewis Maze¹ sent a letter to the Judicial Conduct Commission ("JCC") on November 12, 2017, in which she reported her own conduct. Based upon these facts, the JCC brought a five-count misconduct charge against her. While those misconduct charges were pending a final hearing before the JCC, a grand jury returned a criminal indictment against Judge Maze on November 1, 2018. The grand jury charged Judge Maze with two counts of second-degree forgery² and one count of tampering with public records.³

Two weeks after the return of the indictment, Judge Maze filed three motions in her JCC proceedings, and the JCC denied her requested relief on all of them. The JCC’s denial of these motions is the subject of this appeal.

Before the JCC, Judge Maze first moved for a postponement of all further JCC proceedings until resolution of the criminal charges. Second, Judge Maze moved to postpone the December 3, 2018, JCC hearing, claiming insufficient time to prepare for the hearing because the JCC produced to her a voluminous amount of materials in discovery slightly less than a month before the scheduled JCC hearing. Third, Judge Maze asked for an informal conference with the JCC to address additional misconduct charges that were added after the initial charge.

After the denial of all three motions, Judge Maze filed in this Court a Kentucky Rules of Civil Procedure ("CR") 76.33 Motion for Intermediate Relief on November 28, 2018, asking us to stay the impending JCC hearing. And along with the CR 76.33 motion, Judge Maze filed a Notice of Appeal, in which she asked us to review the JCC’s denial of her three motions. We granted Judge Maze’s CR 76.33 motion, staying all JCC proceedings until we could address the merits of Judge Maze’s appeal of the JCC’s denial of her motions.

We find no error on the part of the JCC in denying Judge Maze’s motion for a stay, and because her other challenges are either moot or procedurally infirm at this time, we affirm her appeal, in part, and order her appeal dismissed, in part.

I. ANALYSIS.

Section 121 of the Kentucky Constitution creates a commission to retire for disability, suspend without pay, or remove for good cause members of the state’s judiciary. And this section mandates that the "actions" of the commission are subject to judicial review by this Court.⁴ But more importantly, Section 121 gives this Court the rulemaking power over the commission’s proceedings. In exercise of this rulemaking power, this Court has promulgated Kentucky Supreme Court Rules ("SCR") 4.000, et seq. SCR 4.010(a) designates the name of the commission as the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission.

SCR 4.290 outlines judicial review of JCC proceedings. SCR 4.290(2) provides, "A notice of appeal of the Commission’s final order shall be filed with the Clerk of the Supreme Court within 10 days after service of notice of the order upon the judge."⁵ Additionally, SCR 4.290(5) provides, "The Court shall have power to affirm, modify or set aside in whole or in part the order of the Commission[.]"⁶ As such, SCR 4.290 contemplates that only after the final order of the JCC resolving all issues does this Court exercise direct appellate review over JCC proceedings.

The language of SCR 4.290(1), which provides that the Kentucky Rules of Civil Procedure ("CR") shall apply to this Court’s appellate review of JCC orders to the extent they are not inconsistent with SCR 4, further buttresses the point that we review only the final orders of the JCC. CR 54.01 provides, "A final or appealable judgment is a final order adjudicating all the rights of all the parties in an action or proceeding[.]" "This Court has long held that appeals are allowed only from final judgments."⁷

The rules governing this Court’s review of JCC proceedings only allow us to review the propriety of those proceedings upon submission of the JCC’s final order resolving the proceedings.⁸ Here though, the JCC proceedings are ongoing; nothing in Judge Maze’s JCC proceedings has been finally adjudicated. And the three JCC rulings at issue in this direct appeal—denial of a stay, denial of a continuance, and denial of an additional informal hearing—are all interlocutory in nature and do not constitute immediately appealable final judgments.⁹

But the JCC only challenges the procedural ability of this Court to address the propriety of Judge Maze’s argument regarding the JCC’s denial of her motion for an additional informal hearing. The JCC argues that Judge Maze’s challenge to the JCC’s denial of her motion for an informal hearing is an impermissible issue for interlocutory review. The JCC is correct in this assertion, so we decline to review the propriety of the JCC’s denial of Judge Maze’s motion for an informal hearing.

Additionally, the JCC argues that this Court’s grant of Judge Maze’s CR 76.33 Motion for Intermediate Relief, which postponed the hearing scheduled for December 3, 2018, renders moot her challenge of the propriety of the JCC’s denial of her motion to continue the December 3, 2018 hearing. The JCC is also correct in this assertion—this Court’s granting of Judge Maze’s CR 76.33 motion did, in fact, cancel the December 3, 2018 hearing.¹⁰ So all that is left for our review is whether the JCC correctly denied Maze’s motion for a stay.¹¹

"The civil and regulatory laws of [government] frequently overlap with the criminal laws, creating the possibility of parallel civil and criminal proceedings, either successive or simultaneous."¹² In this case, Judge Maze’s JCC proceedings and her criminal prosecution are pending at the same time. These parallel proceedings appear to involve the same conduct on the part of Judge Maze. Judge Maze sought by motion to halt the JCC proceedings until her criminal prosecution concludes, but the JCC denied the motion.

"In the absence of substantial prejudice to the rights of the parties involved, such parallel proceedings are unobjectionable under our jurisprudence."¹³ While "[t]he Constitution ... does not ordinarily require a stay of civil proceedings pending the outcome of criminal proceedings[,] [n]evertheless, a court may decide in its discretion to stay civil proceedings, postpone civil discovery, or impose protective orders and conditions ‘when the interests of justice seem ... to require such action, sometimes at the request of the prosecution, ... sometimes at the request of the defense[.]"¹⁴ "The Court must make such determinations in the light of the particular circumstances of the case."¹⁵

A secondary source describes the benefits and drawbacks of parallel proceedings:

Parallel proceedings benefit the government in several ways.... These proceedings allow civil and criminal agencies to share information. Furthermore, the regulatory agency can use the criminal conviction of the defendant to dispose of the civil action.

Parallel proceedings can also benefit a defendant. The defendant may utilize a favorable outcome in the civil action to avoid criminal charges or to dismiss the criminal case. The defendant can use the liberal discovery rules of civil procedure to obtain information about the criminal case. However, parallel proceedings also pose problems for a defendant, such as invocation of his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the financial strain of defending two suits, and the use of evidence from the civil case in the criminal case.¹⁶

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in Dresser offered a compelling analysis for when a court should defer a noncriminal proceeding occurring simultaneously with a defendant’s criminal proceeding:

Other than where there is specific evidence of agency bad faith or malicious governmental tactics, the strongest case for deferring civil proceedings until after completion of criminal proceedings is where a party under indictment for a serious offense is required to defend a civil or administrative action involving the same matter. The noncriminal proceeding, if not deferred, might undermine the party’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, expand rights of criminal discovery beyond the limits of [the Rules of Criminal Procedure], expose the basis of the defense to the prosecution in advance of criminal trial, or otherwise prejudice the case. If delay of the noncriminal proceeding would not seriously injure the public interest, a court may be justified in deferring it.... In some ... cases, however, the courts may adequately protect the government and the private party by merely deferring civil discovery or entering an appropriate protective order.¹⁷

"The burden is on the party seeking the stay to show ‘pressing need for delay’ and ‘that neither the other party nor the public will suffer harm from entry of the order.’ "¹⁸ If a stay is granted, "[t]he stay must only be entered for a certain period of time and must not ‘place [the] case in limbo for years.’ "¹⁹

"While there is no precise test ... for determining when a stay is appropriate, ... courts commonly consider factors such as: (1) the extent to which the issues in the criminal case overlap with those presented in the civil case; (2) the status of the case, including whether the defendants have been indicted; (3) the private interests of the plaintiffs in proceeding expeditiously weighed against the prejudice to plaintiffs caused by the delay; (4) the private interests of and burden on the defendants; (5) the interests of the courts; and (6) the public interest."²⁰ "Moreover, the public interest in effective criminal prosecution generally outweighs any existing civil interests."²¹ "In addition to those factors, ... courts ‘should consider "the extent to which the defendant’s fifth amendment rights are implicated." ’ "²² "The most important factor is the balance of the hardships, but ‘[t]he ... co...