Ex-judge jolted by misconduct charges as he seeks state post

The state’s judicial disciplinary agency has accused Steven Bailey, a former judge now running for California attorney general, of multiple acts of misconduct, including accepting improper gifts, steering court business to his son’s employer and using his judicial title to promote his candidacy.

Bailey engaged in “willful misconduct in office” and conduct that “brings the judicial office into disrepute,” the Commission on Judicial Performance said Wednesday in a detailed statement of formal proceedings against the now-retired judge.

Since Bailey has left the bench, the commission could no longer impose its most severe penalty, removal from office. But it could censure him if a panel of hearing officers upholds the charges.

Bailey, a former criminal defense lawyer, was elected to the El Dorado County Superior Court in 2008 and served until stepping down at the end of August to run as a Republican candidate in the June primary for attorney general. He has cast himself as a lawand-order candidate, received an endorsement from Gun Owners of California and called Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra a soft-on-crime politician.

Campaign spokesman Corey Uhden said Wednesday the commission, “dominated by liberal appointees,” was engaged in an unfounded “attempt to disparage a respected former judge and a highly qualified candidate for attorney general.”

The commission includes six public members appointed by legislative leaders and Gov. Jerry Brown, two lawyers appointed by Brown, and three judges appointed by the state Supreme Court.

The commission said Bailey, in his last year on the bench, spoke at numerous political events and sent notices to potential supporters identifying himself as “Judge Steven Bailey, candidate for attorney general.” Those actions violate ethical rules barring judges from engaging in political activity that is “inconsistent with the independence, integrity or impartiality of the judiciary,” the commission said.

The commission also said Bailey, in numerous criminal cases, had ordered defendants to use electronic monitoring services from a company called CHI without disclosing that his son works there. In one case, the judge, in response to a letter from his son, improperly ordered a defendant to pay the company $140 for its services, the commission said.

In another case, the commission said, Bailey appointed attorney Bradley Clark to monitor a court-ordered development plan at South Lake Tahoe, at $350 an hour, without disclosing that Clark was a personal friend who had been a consultant to his 2008 judicial campaign.

Bailey also accepted $827 in improper gifts from Clark, a group of court-appointed advocates and a law school between 2009 and 2012, the commission said. Under ethical standards, judges are not supposed to accept gifts, loans or favors that would “reasonably be perceived as intended to influence the judge in the performance of official duties.”

And after a fellow judge complimented him about a shirt he was wearing at a courthouse meeting in 2015, the commission said, Bailey replied that he had gotten it from a gay man “so I know it is a nice shirt, as the gays only have nice clothes,” and “really know how to dress.”

Even if he meant it as a compliment, the commission said, the comment violated an ethical ban on conduct that “would reasonably be perceived as bias or prejudice.”