Heath Haussamen
The bribery case against Third Judicial District Judge Mike Murphy has created a scandal that rivals any other the New Mexico judiciary has seen in recent times. With more than 100 judges joining Murphy in being appointed by former Gov. Bill Richardson, the public has reason to question the integrity of the entire judiciary.
And if witness statements released by prosecutors are to be believed, a number of judges share the blame for that.
The state’s Code of Judicial Conduct requires a judge who “receives information indicating a substantial likelihood that another judge has committed a violation” of the code to “take appropriate action.” If the offending judge’s “fitness for office” is in question, the judge who learns of it is required to “inform the New Mexico Judicial Standards Commission.”
Similarly, the code of conduct for all attorneys in New Mexico – which includes judges – requires any who “knows that a judge has committed a violation of applicable rules of judicial conduct that raises a substantial question as to the judge’s fitness for office” to report it to the commission.
Judicial Standards is the body that investigates claims of ethical violations against judges and asks the Supreme Court to take action when warranted. The intent of the rules on reporting judges is that the judiciary police itself, so the public can have confidence in the integrity of its judges.
And yet, according to witness statements, Murphy told several other judges and lawyers that he made some sort of payment – possibly a campaign contribution – in exchange for his appointment to the bench, and that other judicial applicants had to do the same to get appointed.
That’s outrageous. We have a judge saying he did something unethical and possibly illegal in order to get a job that allows him to judge the conduct of others.
Regardless of whether Murphy actually paid a bribe – and to be clear, I’m making no judgment on whether that allegation is true, though I would note that Murphy isn’t charged with paying a bribe – Murphy’s statements cast a cloud of suspicion over the judiciary, may violate ethical rules, and raise questions about his “fitness for office.”
According to an incident report released by the case’s special prosecutor, I count at least 12 judges and two other attorneys who knew about the claims Murphy was making, some as early as 2007. But no one notified the Judicial Standards Commission until several weeks ago.
A big mouth
I remember when a judicial nominating commission interviewed Murphy in 2006 for the appointment he eventually received. Members of that commission asked Murphy about his reputation for having a big mouth – for what Murphy himself called his tendency to make “locker-room jokes.”
Murphy told that commission he recognized the difference between what is appropriate “in the private setting” and what is appropriate in court, and promised that his mouth wouldn’t be an issue.
It appears that his mouth was an issue. It’s been suggested to me that the judges who knew about the statements that have led to Murphy’s indictment ignored them because they knew he was full of it.
But the veracity of Murphy’s claims should have been irrelevant. The very fact that Murphy was making such statements had the potential to taint the entire state’s judiciary. In fact, his statements have ended up doing exactly that.
No one filed a complaint. The Judicial Standards Commission didn’t investigate. The Supreme Court never took action against Murphy.
And now the public is wondering whether all judges appointed by Richardson paid bribes to get their jobs.
Blowing Murphy off or hiding something?
We know that Judge Lisa Schultz took Murphy’s claims seriously. According to her statement to investigators, she spent two years seeking help from colleagues including her court’s chief judge, a Supreme Court justice, a Court of Appeals judge who heads the state’s Advisory Committee on the Code of Judicial Conduct, and a district judge who is a member of the Judicial Standards Commission – all judges who know well their duty to report misconduct by colleagues.
Schultz was apparently afraid to go to the commission because the governor appoints the majority of its members. She believed there was a criminal conspiracy that went all the way to Richardson. Schultz, like the others who knew about Murphy’s claims, probably should have reported the situation to Judicial Standards, but at least she made other efforts to address the situation.
In addition to asking colleagues for advice, she claims she confronted Murphy and another judge, demanding that the behavior stop; when she later decided the behavior had not stopped, Schultz went to law enforcement.
Now-retired Judge Stephen Bridgforth, attorney Beverly Singleman (a former Court of Appeals judge), and court staff attorney Norm Osborn all say Murphy made claims to them about how he got his job and/or what others had to do to get an appointment from Richardson. And yet we have no evidence that any of them went to Judicial Standards. Neither did at least 10 other judges Schultz says she asked for help.
Singleman did go to Schultz for help, which is how Schultz started down a road that eventually led her to report the situation to law enforcement. Bridgforth and Osborn are cooperating with prosecutors, and Osborn also encouraged Schultz to report Murphy’s statements to Judicial Standards or the district’s chief judge.
It’s possible, as has been suggested to me, that the other judges ignored Murphy and Schultz because they know Murphy is a talker and blew him off. Of course, many will suspect those judges did nothing because they’re in on a larger criminal conspiracy.
That is exactly why the entire judiciary is tainted by this situation. And it’s exactly why the Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to report other judges’ misconduct.
Maybe there is a larger criminal conspiracy here, and that’s why most judges who allegedly knew about Murphy’s claims did nothing. But if there isn’t; if the judges did nothing because they simply didn’t believe Murphy, let’s hope they learn from this situation and take more seriously their duty to police their own in the future.
This article has been updated for clarity.