INVESTIGATION: Half of State Magistrates are General Assembly Relatives, Insiders
Thursday, July 03, 2014
Just over half of all magistrates in the state judicial system are former legislative staffers, lawmakers, or relatives of lawmakers, a GoLocalProv review of public records has found.
Out of 20 currently serving magistrates, 11 have a direct connection to a current or former lawmaker or they are ones themselves. Four are former state Senators. One, R. David Cruise, a magistrate in the Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal, is a former state Senator who also served as the chief of state to former state Senate President Joseph Montalbano, who was himself a magistrate until he became a Superior Court judge last year.
Magistrates share many of the powers of judges. They can hear motions, rule on the admissibility of evidence, issue warrants, and impose sentences in some cases. Also like judges they must be confirmed by the state Senate. But their nominations do not go through the comprehensive, public vetting process that was established for judges in the mid-1990s after a series of public corruption scandals involving top state judges.GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST
Some magistrates are also former staffers at the General Assembly. Patrick Burke, a special magistrate in Superior Court, was the deputy assistant legal counsel to former House Speaker Bill Murphy. Two former chief legal counsels to former House Speaker Gordon Fox are also magistrates. One, William Guglietta, runs the traffic tribunal.
‘A form of patronage’
“We consider this to be a form of patronage that Common Cause tried to do away with when we created merit selection for judges. The General Assembly could no longer easily appoint their own to be judges, so they drastically expanded the number of magistrates instead, and have been successful at getting their own into these positions instead,” said John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island.
In all, six magistrates are former General Assembly staffers.
“The magistrate nomination program has morphed into a General Assembly Alumni Association,” added Dan Lawlor, a GoLocalProv columnist. “The message this magistrate program sends, irrespective of the positive individual merits of the candidates, is that one way to have a good job in the state courts is to be involved politically, and to be a loyal worker for the General Assembly leadership.”
Several magistrates are also relatives of former or current lawmakers. Patricia Harwood, wife of former House Speaker John Harwood, is a general magistrate in the Family Court. As a general magistrate she is one of only two magistrates whose pensions are vested in the judicial system, rather than the system for state employees.
The other general magistrate is Feidlim Gill, the brother-in-law of Michael McCaffrey, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which votes to send nominations for full approval by the Senate. Gill was confirmed as a magistrate last year. McCaffrey’s sister, Mary McCaffrey, became a magistrate in 2005, two years after her brother became Senate Judiciary Chairman. She is now a district court associate judge.
“I think there is a favoritism involved here,” said state Rep. Donna Walsh, D-Charlestown. “We’re a small state. We all know each other. There is that opportunity for people to be selected based on who they know unfortunately.”
Magistrates are paid salaries comparable to those of the lowest-earning judges. The base salary for this year is $142,695, according to state Judiciary spokesman Craig Berke. Magistrates also receive health, dental, and vision benefits worth as much as $15,000 a year, according to state payroll records. Their terms are limited to 10 years, but magistrates can be reappointed.
“Over ten years, the state is investing millions of dollars into the families of former elected officials who became court officials outside the Judicial Nominating Commission,” Lawlor said.
Number of magistrates multiplies
It’s not the first time the judicial system has become entangled in accusations of patronage. But changes made to the judicial nominating process in 1994 were supposed to change all that.
Under the old system, lawmakers chose Supreme Court members, with the lower court appointments left to the Governor. The reform created a citizens panel known as the Judicial Nominating Commission, which advertises openings on the state courts, reviews applications, screens candidates, conducts interviews, and even accepts public testimony on candidates. Once the JNC has fully vetted applicants, it forwards a short list of recommendations to the Governor, who picks one to send to the state Senate.
But good government advocates say lawmakers have bypassed that reform by expanding the number of magistrates, who are chosen by the presiding judges of a state court and sent straight to the state Senate for confirmation—bypassing the Judicial Nominating Commission.
Over the years, the number of magistrates has exploded. In 1994, there were five magistrates in the state Judiciary, according to Marion. Today, there are 22 positions, with current two vacancies, according the state judicial roster.
“They were coming up like dandelions on a spring lawn,” said Walsh, who first noticed the increase when she was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the late 1990s.
General Assembly undermines reform
Walsh submitted a bill to reform the selection process of magistrates. The bill did not pass. Instead, lawmakers created a study commission. “Of course it didn’t go any place after that,” said Walsh. “That’s the way the General Assembly deals with issues it doesn’t want to deal with.”
Walsh lost her state Senate seat in 2002. But she returned to the General Assembly as a state rep in 2007 and resumed her push for reform in the magistrate selection process. Her bill would make magistrates go through the same merit-based selection as judges. Walsh has submitted her bill every year since returning to the Statehouse and every year the House Judiciary Committee has killed it. (In lawmaker lingo, it’s been “held for further study” for eight years in a row.)
“They do perform just about 90 percent of what is done by judge, so therefore they should be approved in the same manner,” Walsh said.
State Sen. James Sheehan, who has been a past co-sponsor of the Senate version of the measure, agreed. “They’re really junior judges,” said Sheehan, a North Kingstown Democrat.
Sheehan said he isn’t questioned the qualifications of the current magistrates. But he is asking whether the current system produces the best qualified candidates. “You really need to ratchet up the qualities of the vetting process to make sure the people are the best qualified,” he said.
It’s not just about putting the best qualified on the bench, it’s also about maintaining public confidence in the state court system, according to Sheehan. “I think people’s perceptions are important. We need to make sure people have faith in the magistrate selection process,” he said.
State Rep. Bob Craven, a Narragansett Democrat who serves with Walsh on the House Judiciary Committee, said he supports the bill. Magistrates do not have all the powers of a judge, Craven noted. “But a judicial position is a judicial position,” he added. He said the same uniform, merit-based process should be consistently used for all judicial positions.
Judiciary has no objections to reform
A spokesman said the state Judiciary had no objections to using the Judicial Nominating Commission to pick magistrates.
“The Judiciary’s primary interest in vacancies for judges and magistrates is that these seats are filled by qualified candidates. The process for filling them falls under the authority of the General Assembly, and the courts have no objection should the Assembly vote to modify that process,” said Craig Berke.
General Assembly leaders did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Senate spokesman Greg Pare did not respond to several messages seeking comment yesterday and McCaffrey did not response to a message left on his cell phone.
In the House, Walsh’s bill came before the House Judiciary Committee in early April. This year, the committee had a new chairman, Cale Keable, a Burrillville Democrat, who was part of the new leadership team that had swept to power just days before, amid expectations for a renewed emphasis on ethics after the resignation of House Speaker Gordon Fox. Statehouse records show the bill came before the committee on April 2.
Once again, it was held for further study.
Stephen Beale can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @bealenews
Related Slideshow: State Magistrates and Lawmakers - See the Connections
The below slides profile each of the 11 state judicial magistrates who has an inside connection—as either a former staffer, relative, or member—to the General Assembly. Each slide lists the magistrate, the court in which they serve, their compensation, and their connection to the General Assembly. Information was collected from public records, interviews with sources, and newspaper archives.
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