A judge on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court should have recused herself from two cases but failed to do so, a complaint against her alleges.
Justice Catherine Connors violated Maine’s Code of Judicial Conduct by not recusing herself from two foreclosure cases before the state’s top court, lawyer Thomas Cox said in a complaint filed Jan. 19 with the Maine Committee on Judicial Conduct.
Connors represented and filed briefs in support of banks as a lawyer in the years before she was appointed to Maine’s top court. Because of that representation, Cox said her ability to make impartial decisions in the cases is questionable, especially in a case where she was the deciding vote in favor of a bank.
Connors spent 30 years as a lawyer with a firm that had a relationship with Maine Bankers Association. During that time, she represented mortgage owners and servicers in cases before the supreme court, per the complaint.
The judicial branch does not comment on disciplinary complaints before the committee, about reasons why a judge recused themself or if a judge should recuse, Barbara Cardone, director of legal affairs and public relations for the judicial branch, wrote in a statement.
“The decision to recuse is a decision that belongs to the individual justice or judge,” Cardone said.
Each judge has a duty to recuse when necessary, but they also have a duty to not recuse if it is not necessary, she said. Both duties need to be weighed before a judge makes a decision.
Connors ruled with the majority in two opinions released in January. Her affirmative vote in the case of Charles Finch against U.S. Bank resulted in a 4-3 decision in favor of the bank and overturned a decision that was considered settled after a 2017 case.
The January decision in Finch’s case essentially reversed the 2017 case. Lenders can now seek foreclosures for entire payments even if they made mistakes about what borrowers owe in the default process. Tuesday’s supreme court decision found the lender made an error in how much an Oxford County woman owed, but said a lower court will decide if she has to continue to pay or if she can have her home for essentially free.
Under the Maine Judicial Code of Conduct a judge should recuse themself “in any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” It goes on to say if a reasonable person who knows all the facts would question a judge’s ability to be impartial, the judge should excuse themselves from the case.
During Connors time as a private lawyer, she argued on behalf of clients with “substantial financial interest,” the complaint said. She filed a brief on behalf of U.S. Bank in the 2017 case and filed a brief in support of the Federal National Mortgage Association in a different 2017 case.
She should have recused herself from Finch’s case, because any reasonable person would have doubted her ability to be impartial, Cox said. If she had recused herself, the vote would have been 3-3, meaning the decision would have stayed in favor of Finch, as the first court decided.
In the complaint Cox also argued Connors should recuse herself from the J.P. Morgan case. The complaint was filed before the opinion was issued, in which Connors voted in the majority.
“Her opinions were already formed and are mirrored now by the language set forth in [the Finch case],” the complaint said.
She was appointed to the court by Gov. Janet Mills in early 2020, before that she had not served as a judge.
During Connors’ confirmation hearing, she said she would have to go back and look at the cases but expected she would have “significant recusals” in foreclosure cases where she represented banks on appeals.
When there is “even the appearance of impropriety,” a judge needs to look at the individual circumstances of each case, Connors said Jan. 30, 2020. She would “refer to the side of recusal” if there is any doubt.
The complaint process through the judicial conduct committee is confidential, unless the judge or committee decides to open the proceedings. The person who files the complaint is allowed to discuss their issue.
“The first best outcome is that the issue was dealt with out in the open,” Cox said. “In my opinion it is not something that’s appropriate to be finally resolved in a confidential process.”
Three months is the typical amount of time it takes to resolve a complaint, however it sometimes takes longer, per the committee’s website.
