McDonald v. Jacobsen
| Docket Number | DA 22-0229 |
| Decision Date | 14 June 2022 |
| Parties | SISTER MARY JO MCDONALD; LORI MALONEY; FRITZ DAILY; BOB BROWN; DOROTHY BRADLEY; VERNON FINLEY; MAE NAN ELLINGSON; and the LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF MONTANA, Plaintiffs and Appellees, v. CHRISTI JACOBSEN, Montana Secretary of State, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | Montana Supreme Court |
Defendant and Appellant Christi Jacobsen? Montana Secretary of State, via counsel, has moved to disqualify the Chief Justice and the six Associate Justices of this Court from hearing this appeal. Plaintiffs and Appellees Sister Mary Jo McDonald, Lori Maloney, Fritz Daily, Bob Brown, Dorothy Bradley, Vernon Finley, Mae Nan Ellingson, and the League of Women Voters of Montana oppose Jacobsen's motion.
This appeal involves a constitutional challenge to HB 325 which if approved by voters, would change how Montana Supreme Court Justices are elected. In Reicheri v. State, 2012 MT 111, 365 Mont. 92, 278 P.3d 455, this Court considered the same issue when the State appealed from a district court order that directed the decertification of a legislative referendum that likewise sought to change how Montana Supreme Court Justices are elected. The Court concluded that the fact that the Justices could potentially run for reelection did not establish that their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Reichert, ¶ 50. The Court thus concluded that recusal was not warranted. Reichert ¶ 51.
We recently reaffirmed Reichert's reasoning relying on it in part in denying the Legislature's motion for disqualification of all Justices in McLaughlin v Mont. State Legislature, 2021 MT 120, 404 Mont. 166, 489 P.3d 482, a case involving the Judicial Branch's Court Administrator. In McLaughlin, we relied on § 2.7 of the Montana Code of Judicial Conduct and on the "Rule of Necessity," which applies "[w]hen the matter to be decided affects the interests of every judge qualified to hear it[.]" McLaughlin, ¶ 14. We explained that "implicit in the Rule is the concept of the absolute duty of judges to hear and decide cases within their jurisdiction and that 'actual disqualification of a member of a court of last resort will not excuse such member from performing his official duty if failure to do so would result in denial of a litigant's constitutional right to have a question, properly presented to such court, adjudicated.'" McLaughlin, ¶ 14 (citations omitted).
We have determined that Reichert and McLaughlin govern the outcome of the present motion. For the same reasons that disqualification of the Justices of this Court was not warranted in those cases, it is not warranted here. As we noted in Reichert, "the potential" that any given member of this Court could seek re-election and "the potential" that a district judge called in to substitute also could decide to run for the Supreme Court meant that "no judge in this state-indeed, no otherwise qualified person with "the potential" to run for Supreme Court justice-could sit on [the] case," thereby invoking the Rule of Necessity. Reichert, ¶ 37. That "potential" also did not...
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