A Maine Supreme Judicial Court judge should face public reprimand for not recusing herself from two cases, a state committee found.
Justice Catherine Connors violated Maine’s Code of Judicial Conduct by not recusing herself from two foreclosure cases before the state’s top court, the Committee on Judicial Conduct wrote in a 10-page report on Monday.
This was the first complaint the committee received about a Supreme Judicial Court justice. Lawyer Thomas Cox filed the complaint Jan. 19.
Connors did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment late Friday. Judicial Branch spokesperson Barbara Cardone said the branch will not comment on the pending matter “outside of any orders” that the high court issues regarding Connors.
“Since there is no specific procedure for this type of case, we will be relying on procedural orders to learn how the Court will handle this matter going forward,” Cardone said.
The next steps and timeline in the case are not immediately known.
In January, Connors ruled with the majority on two cases about foreclosure before the state’s highest court. She knew the decisions “would not only affect the immediate parties to them but likely hundreds, if not, thousands of Maine homeowners facing foreclosure in the future,” the report said.
Connors represented and filed briefs in support of banks as a lawyer in the years before Gov. Janet Mills appointed her to Maine’s top court in 2020. She spent 30 years as a lawyer with a firm that had a relationship with Maine Bankers Association. During that time, she represented mortgage owners and servicers in cases before the supreme court, the complaint said.
Under the Maine Judicial Code of Conduct, a judge should recuse themselves “in any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” It says if a reasonable person who knows all the facts would question a judge’s ability to be impartial, the judge should excuse themselves from the case.
A member of the public “would reasonably question her impartiality” before and during when heard the cases, the decision said. Connors was required to recuse herself from the two cases but did not, the report said.
Her history of representing banking interests would have caused a “reasonable person to question her impartiality,” in the two cases, the report said.
She chose to participate in one case before asking for guidance from Maine’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics and continued with the second after she received that guidance. The Judicial Ethics Committee told Connors it did not think she needed to recuse herself, according to an email included in the report.
Her affirmative vote in the case of Finch v. U.S. Bank resulted in a 4-3 decision in favor of the bank and overturned a decision that was considered settled after a 2017 case.
The Finch case essentially reversed the 2017 case, with lenders now allowed to seek foreclosures for entire payments even if they made mistakes about what borrowers owe in the default process. The high court decision found the lender made an error in how much an Oxford County woman owed but said a lower court will decide if she has to continue to pay or if she can have her home for essentially free.
Connors’ public reprimand should include language “stating that judicial candidates are to be candid at confirmation hearings and that representations by them at those hearings are to be honored particularly with respect to actual conflicts, the appearance of conflict and conformity with the Judicial Canon of Ethics in order to preserve the integrity of, and the public’s confidence in, the judiciary in Maine.”
A panel of judges from Maine’s superior courts should pass judgement on Connors, the report said. However, those judges should not have been involved in the ethics committee decision about her to avoid impropriety or the appearance of it, the committee said. A panel of out-of-state judges could also handle it to prevent a conflict, the report said.
The judicial committee typically sends the case to the high court if a complaint is serious enough for formal discipline so the state’s justices can make the final decision.
Connors graduated from the Northeastern University School of Law and worked for Portland-based Pierce Atwood before Mills appointed her to the Supreme Judicial Court.