Imperfect Union

The South Carolina Advisory Committee on Standards of Judicial Conduct declines to bless the conflicts arising from the union of a Municipal Judge and the City Attorney

A candidate for a full-time Municipal Court judge is married to the City Attorney. The position of Municipal Court judge entails presiding over bench trials, jury trials, and preliminary hearings. The City Attorney does not prosecute cases. Instead, the City Attorney’s job is limited to drafting and reviewing contracts, advising City Council on legal matters, making interpretations of statutes during council meetings, and acting as parliamentarian.

A prior opinion

we determined that service by one law partner as a municipal judge and one law partner as city attorney could raise the appearance of impropriety and cause the public to question the impartiality of the judiciary.

Thus

Here, the “partnership” in question is of a marital nature but we believe the same logic applies. Even though the City Attorney here does not appear in Municipal Court, the City Attorney would be providing legal advice to City Council, perhaps even drafting ordinances and their penalties. The ordinances, or violators thereof, would then come before the Municipal Judge. Additionally, the City Council makes employment decisions regarding judges which the City Attorney presumably advises on, creating a further conflict. Finally, the mere fact that the judge is married to the City Attorney could create the appearance of partiality in favor of the City.

Another recent opinion involves the situation when a judge’s spouse is a party in active litigation

A Family Court Judge should not preside over cases in which a lawyer (or members of the law firm) appear as counsel where the lawyer also represents the opposing party in litigation involving the judge’s spouse.

(Mike Frisch)