08/01/2008: "Questions Raised On Ethics In Judge Race"

Both County Prosecutor Randy Gaylord and Judge John Linde are at the top of the legal pyramid in San Juan County, but they both -as the old saying goes- put on their pants one leg at a time.

Here it is on the first day that a ballot can be filed, and both have said they forgot a past mistake and checked a box wrong when applying to be appointed by the Governor as San Juan County’s first Superior Court judge.

For the last few weeks there has been talk in media circles about a Court sanction made some years ago against Gaylord by former Superior Court Judge Alan Hancock. Now an admonishment against John Linde when he was the SJC District Court Judge has also surfaced as a topic of conversation.

The problem for both of them came to light after a review of their respective answers to a questionnaire revealed that each had failed to check the “yes” box to question 39 on a Uniform Judicial Evaluation Questionnaire.

Each had been asked to fill out the questionnaire as part of the appointment evaluation process by the Governor’s Office. Question 39 asked “Have you ever been disciplined or cited for breach of ethic or unprofessional conduct?”

The Linde case was a simple one that dated back to 1995. Linde stated he had forgotten to issue a decision in a small claims case when paper work had simply been misplace in the office for a year. While this was -and is - an embarrassment for Linde, it also resulted in an “admonishment” by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct. In issuing the admonishment, it was noted by the Commission that in the nearly 20 years Judge Linde had sat on the bench, this was the first complaint against him.

But Gaylord’s answer that he had not been cited has raised a second question of ethics that goes to unprofessional conduct when Gaylord maintains that he simply forgot a Court ordered sanction against him.

Gaylord is asking the public and the Governor to believe that he could have forgotten a sanction against him by Judge Hancock that resulted in a potential financial liability; and that further, after the sanction, there was a second action when the Court ordered Gaylord to pay over $7,000.00 as a result of Gaylord’s own personal actions in a land use case before Judge Hancock.

Gaylord’s answer of “no” is a statement that while looking at the boxes of “yes” and “no” to question 39, he also did not recall that after the sanction, and after the Court order to pay -according to one source - $7,613.00, he went to the County Commissioners and successfully convinced them they should pay the money Gaylord had been ordered to pay.

Had both Gaylord and Judge Linde checked the box “yes”, it is fair to say the end result of the evaluation by the Governor’s office would not have changed, and the Governor would still have appointed Judge Linde as the Superior Court Judge. It remains to be seen however if nothing has changed in the voters mind as they decide if County Prosecutor Gaylord should replace Judge Linde as the next Superior Court Judge in San Juan County