Panel Urges Impeachment of Chief Justice in N.H.

Lawmakers recommended impeaching the state’s highest judge Wednesday, saying he lied under oath to hinder their investigation of the state Supreme Court.

After six hours of debate, the New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee voted, 17 to 5, that there was enough evidence that Chief Justice David A. Brock may have perjured himself to warrant sending the matter to the state Senate for trial. The House will vote on the issue next week.

“There seems to be a pattern here of deception. It may be over small things, but some of these small things contributed to obstruction of justice,” said state Rep. Benjamin DePecol.

The committee also endorsed two other articles of impeachment alleging that Brock called a lower-court judge in 1987 in a case involving a powerful state senator, something Brock has denied, and that he solicited comments from a fellow justice about that justice’s divorce case.

Brock’s lawyer, David Barry, said Wednesday that the committee had lowered the threshold for impeachment too far. Historically, he said, officials have been impeached for willful misconduct, not poor judgment.

“An impeachment of the chief justice based on the evidence found will stand out as a historical aberration,” Barry said. Two other articles of impeachment against Brock, one accusing him of letting disqualified justices take part in case deliberations and the other saying the sum of his actions warranted impeachment, both failed.

Earlier Wednesday, the committee recommended that Justices Sherman D. Horton Jr. and John T. Broderick Jr. be neither impeached nor reprimanded. The panel’s recommendations are expected to be put to a full House vote next week.

The committee’s work began in April, after Atty. Gen. Philip T. McLaughlin accused former Justice Stephen Thayer of trying to influence the appointment of an appeals panel in his own divorce case.

McLaughlin also accused the other justices of routinely taking part in discussions about cases from which they were disqualified.

Committee members have since accused Brock of placing the court’s confidentiality above the need to report misconduct by other justices and entertaining Thayer’s attempt to influence his divorce case.

Horton and Broderick were accused of initially failing to blow the whistle on Thayer and of participating in cases from which they were disqualified. The justices have said their comments in such cases were limited to grammar, writing style and sometimes the scope of an opinion--but not the outcome.

Lawmakers said they were not pleased with Horton and Broderick but said months of publicity did enough damage to their reputations. They said they trusted Broderick to work to reform the court, and Horton is nearing mandatory retirement at age 70.

“If they haven’t gotten any message from this, then they’re dead from the neck up,” Manchester Democrat James Craig said.

The court’s conduct may never have come to light had Howard J. Zibel, the court’s clerk, not written a memo suggesting that Brock had a legal duty to report it.

In public testimony last month, Brock apologized for his poor judgment, but said he meant no harm. He said he knew immediately that Thayer had acted inappropriately and reacted to the sensitive situation as best he could.