Judicial ethics hearing delayed
Panel looking into Griffen case waits for special counsel
An ethics hearing over Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen’s decision to participate in a protest against the death penalty was delayed again on Friday, with a new hearing date set for next month.
The delay is the latest in the two-year-long saga over Griffen’s actions, which came on the same day in April 2017 when Griffen issued an order that threatened to stall the state’s plans to conduct a series of executions. In response, the Arkansas Supreme Court stripped Griffen of his ability to hear cases on capital punishment, a decision that caused Griffen to accuse the justices themselves of ethics charges.
The Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, the state’s judicial watchdog, dismissed the charges against the Supreme Court justices in November.
Griffen’s case, meanwhile, was originally scheduled to go before the commission next Tuesday.
Instead, an eight-member panel of the commission that was supposed to hear Griffen’s case granted its third continuance since the fall because of scheduling issues with the out-of-state prosecutors set to try the case against Griffen.
The out-of-state prosecutors were brought in because David Sachar, the director of the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, recused from trying the case along with his deputy director back in 2017. They cited the potential conflicts of interest with the involvement of the entire Supreme Court.
Instead, Rachel Michel, a staff attorney with the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance, was hired to work free of charge to investigate whether Griffen’s actions violated the state’s judicial canons. Michel, however, received military orders in September that made her unavailable to try the case at a hearing originally scheduled for October.
The commission then replaced Michel with Timothy Discenza, an attorney at the Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct. The hearing was delayed until March, and then to May. But then Discenza had to withdraw because of health last week.
The case is now back in the hands of Michel. Citing more military orders, she filed a motion this week to either withdraw as special counsel or receive another continuance.
The commissioners, with one dissenting, Friday voted against allowing Michel to withdraw. They instead granted her motion for a continuance — setting a new hearing date for June 10.
Michel did not say in her motion when she would be available again to try the case. A person who answered the phone at her office in Mississippi on Friday said Michel remained away on military orders and was unavailable for comment.
Before adjourning Friday, the commission also denied a motion by Griffen’s attorneys for summary judgment, claiming a lack of evidence in the case. The commissioners declined to address a separate motion made by Griffen’s attorney’s to allow video testimony at the hearing.
Mike Laux, Griffen’s attorney, said Friday: “Clearly, there are two sets of rules at the JDDC: one for the Arkansas Supreme Court Justices and one for Judge Griffen. I will let your readers guess whose rules are more onerous and arbitrary.”
If the ethics charges are substantiated by the commission, Griffen could face penalties ranging from admonishment to censure. More serious penalties, including removal from office, require review from the Supreme Court, whose justices would likely have to recuse.