Maine
Maine’s highest court proposes barring justices from disciplining peers
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has proposed new rules governing judicial conduct complaints that would keep members of the high court from having to discipline their peers.
The proposed rules would establish a panel of eight judges — the four most senior active Superior Court justices and the four most senior active District Court judges who are available to serve — to weigh complaints against a justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Members of the high court would not participate.
The rule changes come just weeks after the Committee on Judicial Conduct recommended the first sanction against a justice on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in state history.
The committee said Justice Catherine Connors should be publicly reprimanded, the lowest level of sanction, for failing to recuse herself in two foreclosure cases last year that weakened protections for homeowners in Maine, despite a history of representing banks that created a possible conflict of interest. Connors represented or filed on behalf of banks in two precedent-setting cases that were overturned by the 2024 decisions.
In Maine, it’s up to the Supreme Judicial Court to decide the outcome of judicial disciplinary cases. But because in this case one of the high court’s justices is accused of wrongdoing, the committee recommended following the lead of several other states by bringing in a panel of outside judges, either from other levels of the court or from out of state.
Connors, however, believes the case should be heard by her colleagues on the court, according to a response filed late last month by her attorney, James Bowie.
Bowie argued that the outcome of the case will ultimately provide guidance for the lower courts — a power that belongs exclusively to the state supreme court.
It should not, he wrote, be delegated “to some other ad hoc grouping of inferior judicial officers.”
The court is accepting comments on the proposal until Jan. 23. The changes, if adopted, would be effective immediately and would apply to pending matters, including the Connors complaint.