JQC draws its gun now that scandal has left town

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© St. Petersburg Times
published January 9, 2002

Payback is a, uh, tough thing.

The formal charges now filed against Circuit Judge Gregory P. Holder -- the whistle-blower in courthouse scandals in Hillsborough County -- stink of payback.

To some of his fellow judges in Tampa, Holder is a tattletale, a holier-than-thou fellow. The former Hillsborough chief judge, Dennis Alvarez, called him "the courthouse leak."

One of the cases set in motion by Holder led to plenty of bad press for the state Judicial Qualifications Commission, the body that disciplines judges in Florida. The state Legislature even stepped in to bypass the JQC.

So now, that same JQC has decided to file formal ethics charges against Holder -- a West Point graduate, a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, a straight-arrow type -- accusing him of being an outright liar.

What is Holder's supposed offense? Last year, Holder applied to be a federal judge. He filled out a form. One of the questions was:

Have you ever been disciplined or cited for a breach of state ethics or unprofessional conduct by, or been the subject of a complaint to, any court, administrative agency, bar association, disciplinary committee, or other professional group?

Holder answered no.

Notice that the question included the word "complaint." Holder understood "complaint" to have a formal meaning -- a filed document, an official accusation.

It should be pointed out that EVERY judge is the subject of "complaints." Sometimes it seems that half the people in the world (the half that lost a case, anyway) allege that the judge was a bum, or even a crook.

Now and then, where there is a little more to it, a judge gets a private talking-to. Maybe there wasn't a full-scale ethics violation. Just something untoward, like a judge losing his temper. The judge gets told, quietly, look, don't do it again, okay?

The JQC folks refer to these confidential sit-downs as "missionary work." Holder, like many judges, indeed had gotten his share of "missionary work" over the years.

One time, he threw a pair on handcuffs on his desk and threatened to have the lawyers arrested. Another time, he spoke too freely about an appeals court that overturned one of his rulings. He also spoke too freely about another judge. He got counseled. Nothing public.

But now, for the purpose of charging him, the JQC's informal "missionary work" becomes, ex post facto, a formal tuxedo with black tie. The commission itself will serve as the accusing witness against Holder, as well as the trier of fact, and the recommender of his punishment, with Holder's old Hillsborough nemeses along for the joyride.

I think the JQC got burned on the Hillsborough scandals, which have led to four judges' resignations in the past 18 months. I think the JQC looked especially lousy in the case of Circuit Judge Robert Bonanno, in which the commission had to do back flips and contortions to ignore a damning grand jury report. That's why the Legislature got involved.

The JQC is acting like a referee in a hotly contested ball game. One side keeps accusing the ref of making all the calls for the other team. Sure enough, pretty soon the ref makes a call the other way. Nothing conscious. It just works out that way. There was grumbling in Tampa that the JQC had been picking on Hispanic judges. This sure evens things up.

At the very, very, very worst, Holder did not understand the question on his application, although I think he understood it just fine and answered it as he understood the truth to be. Now he is mortified. He offered to do whatever the commission told him to do to make things right. Instead, the commission lowered its cannon and fired.

So we have a "Judicial Qualifications Commission" that says that a Robert Bonanno is fit to stay on the bench, no matter what a grand jury says, but that a Greg Holder has violated the "integrity" of the judiciary and is guilty of "impropriety or the appearance of impropriety." Go figure.

- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.

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