Share:
Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2015 - 2016
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | November 18, 2015 03:37 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Judith L. Schwank and Sen. Anthony H. Williams |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Judicial Conduct Reform |
| We will shortly introduce legislation to reform the process for judicial discipline in Pennsylvania. The state Constitution was amended In 1993 amid a series of court scandals to provide for the independent investigation and discipline of judicial misconduct. That process has been gradually compromised by a series of state Supreme Court rulings since then, however, to the point that recently the court directly reasserted its own primary authority in such matters and effectively restricted the jurisdiction of the Judicial Conduct Board and the Court of Judicial Discipline, the bodies established under the amendment for these purposes, to cases the court does not choose to handle itself. To reverse this substitution of judicial interpretations for the voters' will and to help restore public confidence in court processes, our proposal will end the application of King's Bench and Extraordinary jurisdiction to judicial conduct cases, the principal means the court has used to reinsert itself. To further ensure against the intrusion of conflicting judicial interests into such proceedings, our proposal also will replace the Supreme Court's current authority to appoint 10 members of the Judicial Conduct Board and Court of Judicial Discipline with two additional gubernatorial appointments to the conduct board and one legislative appointment for each of the four caucus leaders to the conduct board and one by each leader to the disciplinary court. It also will require an immediate interim suspension of a judge upon the formal filing of disciplinary charges or felony charges against the judge, reduce the number of seats on the conduct board and disciplinary court that are reserved for judges to four from seven, and fund them by a distinct line item within the Judicial budget. We believe these changes are both sensible and necessary and hope you will consider joining with us in sponsoring them. |
Introduced as SB1083