Connecticut
High court approves disciplinary hearings for absent judge
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The Connecticut Supreme Court unanimously voted Tuesday to begin disciplinary proceedings against a state judge who has not shown up to work for more than two years while continuing to be paid.
The court approved an investigation into Judge Alice Bruno and whether there are grounds to remove or suspend her.
Bruno, who is assigned to Waterbury Superior Court, is accusing court officials of refusing to accommodate her disability so she can return to work. She also claims Judicial Branch officials have retaliated against her. Court officials have declined to comment on Bruno’s claims.
Messages seeking comment were left for Bruno and her attorney Tuesday. They appeared before the state’s Supreme Court last week and argued she should not be disciplined.
Bruno’s absence from work was first reported in November by lawyer and Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie, a Republican former state lawmaker. The judge has not reported to work since Nov. 14, 2019, but the state has paid her nearly $400,000 since then.
Details of Bruno’s disability have not been disclosed. She has said that her health condition is disabling and court officials have made it worse by refusing to provide her with accommodations, which is why she has not been able to return to work.
The Supreme Court has authorized former state Judge Robert Devlin to investigate whether there are grounds to fire or suspend Bruno, and ordered Bruno to cooperate with the probe. Devlin is now the state’s inspector general, investigating use of force by police.
Idaho
Catholic church asks to intervene in lawsuit over new abortion law
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The Roman Catholic Church is asking the Idaho Supreme Court to let it intervene in a lawsuit over a new law banning nearly all abortions.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise, which covers all of Idaho, filed the request to intervene in support of the abortion ban as a “friend of the court” on Monday.
Idaho last month became the first state to enact legislation modeled after the Texas statute banning abortions after about six weeks. The law would allow the potential father, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles of the embryo or fetus to each sue an abortion provider for a minimum of $20,000 in damages within four years after the abortion. Rapists can’t file a lawsuit under the law, but a rapist’s relatives could.
Planned Parenthood of Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky sued over the law, calling it unconstitutional, and last week the Idaho Supreme Court blocked the abortion ban from taking effect while the lawsuit is underway.
In the request to intervene, attorneys for the Catholic church said the Diocese has “maintained a vested interest in the dignity and sanctity of all human life, including life of the unborn.”
The bishop of the diocese, Bishop Peter Christensen, wrote in a legal filing that the church helped get the abortion ban through the Legislature.
“The Diocese counseled and educated legislators regarding the same, and provided support during the legislative process to proponents of the bill,” Christensen wrote in the legal filing.
The lawsuit is one of many legal fights going on nationwide over access to abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled willingness in a Mississippi case to severely erode or even strike down Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal nationwide until a baby can survive outside the womb. Numerous states with Republican majorities are poised to follow the strictest interpretation of the ruling.
Ohio
Federal panel punts dispute over congressional map
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A federal judicial panel declined Tuesday to grant an order temporarily blocking certification of 2022 U.S. House races that have gone forward in Ohio under a disputed congressional map.
Ruling on largely technical grounds, a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio advised a group of Black voters from Youngstown claiming to be disenfranchised by the map that their issue must be litigated separately.
The group, known as the Simon parties, had sought the order against the congressional map as a side party in a lawsuit involving Ohio’s unresolved maps of state legislative districts.
But judges said adding congressional maps to that dispute would be “doubling the scope and complexity” of the case.
“The court did not contemplate sweeping congressional redistricting, which is a wholly distinct process, into this lawsuit,” the judges wrote. “Though both varieties of redistricting involve the (Ohio Redistricting) Commission, they are separate tasks, utilizing independent standards and resulting in different district boundaries for General Assembly members versus Congressmembers.”
The panel urged the Simon parties to return to the Northern District of Ohio, where it had filed — and then dropped — an earlier lawsuit, to make its case against the U.S. House map. The voter group must limit its arguments in the case involving legislative maps only to disenfranchisement they allege under those maps, judges said.
While U.S. House races have gone forward in Ohio, the state’s legislative races — to determine state representatives and senators — are on hold. The federal court has said it will intervene after April 20 if the state fails to come to some resolution.
In a series of divided votes, the redistricting commission has passed four different sets of legislative maps. The first three were invalidated by the Ohio Supreme Court as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders unduly favoring Republicans, and a fourth set — hardly different from the third — is now before the court.
As the public awaits their ruling on the fourth set of maps, justices also are weighing arguments on the extraordinary question of whether commissioners should be held in contempt of its orders to pass maps that fairly reflected the state’s 54% Republican-46% Democratic partisan breakdown.
