060319 SCJEO, JUD 8-2019

Case DateJune 03, 2019
CourtSouth Carolina
JUD 8-2019
Opinion No. 8-2019
South Carolina Judicial Ethics Opinion
Advisory Committee On Standards of Judicial Conduct
June 3, 2019
          LETITIA H. VERDIN, CHAIR.          RE: Propriety of a municipal court judge’s clerk also working as a full-time paralegal for the City Solicitor’s office.          FACTS          A municipal court judge’s former clerk is now working as a full-time paralegal for the City Solicitor’s office (which is different than the City Attorney’s office). The municipal court judge needs the clerk to continue working weekends for the Bond Judge on an emergency basis. The bond hearings are open to the public and recorded by video so the clerk would not be privy to any more information than anyone else. However, the judge inquires as to whether retaining the clerk in this emergency weekend position, while the clerk also has full-time employment with the City Solicitor, would violate any of the Canons.          CONCLUSION          A former municipal court clerk, now employed as a paralegal for the City Solicitor’s office, should not continue to work weekends for the Bond Judge in municipal court.          OPINION          In Opinions 11-2002 and 13-2002, we addressed the propriety of a magistrate judge also working as a clerk in the solicitor’s office. We found that, regardless of whether the judge was full-time or part-time, employment in the solicitor’s office was not appropriate. Those decisions were based on Rule 501, SCACR, Canon 4(A), which states that a judge shall conduct all of the judge's extra-judicial activities so that they do not (1) cast reasonable doubt on the judge's capacity to act impartially as a judge, (2) demean the judicial office, or (3) interfere with the proper performance of judicial duties. We determined that because magistrates may handle criminal misdemeanor matters, including criminal domestic violence, prostitution, assault and battery, harassment, stalking, receiving of stolen goods and obtaining goods under false pretenses, employment in the solicitor's office could cast doubt on the magistrate's ability to act impartially and could create the...

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