Opinion: Bonanno's calculated dodge

Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Robert Bonanno could have saved taxpayers a lot of money and the judiciary a lot of grief had he resigned before Thursday over what clearly were unethical acts that ruined his credibility as a judge and public servant. By clinging to the privileges of power so long, Bonanno brought additional disgrace to the judiciary by revealing the weaknesses of Florida's system for holding unfit judges accountable.

Bonanno is the latest embarrassment to depart the Hillsborough judiciary, and his ouster should help the new chief judge, Manuel Menendez Jr., to build a courthouse culture based on candor and integrity. For all his bluster, Bonanno in the end wasn't willing to stand and explain his alleged affair with a courthouse clerk or why he was caught alone in a fellow judge's darkened office. There were other questions about his professional and personal life that were to be raised Thursday as impeachment hearings got under way in Tampa. Many had also hoped the hearings would reveal more about how then-chief Judge Dennis Alvarez handled a string of courthouse scandals.

Even though Bonanno is gone, the people of Hillsborough still deserve answers to many questions about a man who spent two decades on the bench. For all the promises he and his lawyer made, Bonanno still hasn't given the public his side to stories about the case sealings, the land deal, the girlfriend.

Bonanno's resignation is an embarrassing blow to the Judicial Qualifications Commission, which recommended to the state Supreme Court that Bonanno be allowed to remain on the bench. Indeed, it was the JQC's failure that prompted state lawmakers to begin impeachment proceedings. It would be a disappointing footnote for the record if Bonanno could spin his resignation as a reaction to the political process of impeachment, rather than, as it was, a calculated dodge to avoid professional punishment by his peers. For that reason, it is important for the JQC to finish its work.

However welcome the outcome, state Rep. Larry Crow, R-Dunedin, chairman of the House Judicial Oversight Committee, jumped the gun by starting the impeachment process before the state Supreme Court completed its own disciplinary process against Bonanno. If lawmakers are serious about improving the process for policing judges, they should give the JQC an adequate budget and determine whether the secrecy clause governing investigations protects bad judges more than it does the wrongly accused. In Bonanno's case and others, the record has never been made fully public because judges are allowed to time their resignations in a way that keeps their dirty laundry concealed.

Thursday represented incremental progress, but the best protection against future Bonannos is a more open process that rewards candor and integrity, not the cleverness to play the system.

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