The Legal Language May Be About Benefits, But It's Really About Trust

One can learn a lot about local government (and judicial) ethics by listening to local officials talk about a conflict situation they're in. Here's one from Dallas County,  where the district attorney's wife is a political consultant for the campaigns of seven judges before whom the D.A.'s office practices.

According to an article in today's Dallas Morning News, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct gave a green light to these relationships before they happened. So the judges are officially off the hook.

But listen to what the director of the commission said:  "as long as there's no tit for tat – the candidates getting something from [the D.A.] because they hired his wife – there isn't a problem. 'It shouldn't be an issue unless something else is at play.'"

In other words, district attorneys and their families can have any relationship they want with judges as long as the judges don't get something out of it (except, presumably, the D.A.'s political support). The corollary to this is that it's fine if the D.A. and his family get something out of it, and appearances don't matter.

The judicial conduct director offered a simple disclosure solution to appearance problems:  the judges need only tell defense attorneys that the D.A.'s wife is their political consultant. How many defense attorneys are going to (or at least want to) demand recusal, especially if the particular judge is not one of their first choices?

More important, how many defendants are going to feel the system is rigged against them?

One of the judges who hired the D.A.'s wife said that the wife keeps her marriage and working relationship with her husband separate from her business. "She's Craig's wife, and I never even think of it. I talk to her every day and I never think of it. It would bother me if I felt like she was using her husband."

Why would she have to "use" her husband for there to be a conflict? Using your husband's position to get work can create a conflict. But it's not government work the wife was seeking, there's no contract with the government itself, so in this case it isn't going to be something covered by a local government ethics code.

But a judge talking to the D.A.'s wife every day is a serious problem, at least in the perception of others who come before the court. In this sense, it is more a judicial ethics problem than a government ethics problem.

According to the article, the D.A.'s wife "dismissed concerns over her consulting role with judges as simple ranting from political opponents. She said that few people question the ethics of defense lawyers who give campaign dollars to sitting judges. 'Why would people think I would jeopardize everything Craig and I have worked hard for to get a few dollars?'"

The D.A. himself is quoted as saying, "I'm the DA, which has nothing to do with her job. It has nothing to do with how I'm going to prosecute a case." Again, what is the relevance of how the D.A. would prosecute a case? Having a judge who is a business associate of his wife will help him, or be seen as helping him, no matter how he prosecutes his cases.

All the parties involved are concerned about who might benefit, which is how ethics laws are written. But they should know that what underlies the talk of benefits is trust in the system, something none of them considers. Is it really too much to ask that a D.A.'s campaign consultant spouse work only for candidates before whom her husband's office will never try a case?

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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