Managing Partner Randall A. Miller shares his insight on the Daily Journal’s article “Disclosure rule could compromise secrecy of judge probes”
The Commission of Judicial Performance has finalized rule changes that allow it to release information about unfinished disciplinary investigations to outside regulatory agencies, raising concerns by some judges and attorneys that confidentiality could be compromised and judges’ reputations damaged needlessly.
In this Daily Journal article, Mr. Randall Miller states: “My concern, from my perspective in representing judges in this process, is that at an early stage of the investigation they have no input from the judge,” When the judge and counsel do get to respond, the evidence presented often ends the investigation, he continued to say. Mr. Miller also felt the admonishment of confidentiality “seemed like sort of an odd solution to that because there are all sorts of ways we see all the time these things can be leaked.”