Today’s Coeur d’Alene Press is running an Associated Press article headlined Couple top county in Supreme Court. The case that was the subject of the article was Stafford v. Kootenai County. It is a dispute over a Kootenai County ordinance.
The article did not name the First District Court Judge whose decision the Supreme Court vacated. The judge who failed to read and understand Idaho law and who heard the case without any jurisdiction was Judge John T. Mitchell.
As Chief Justice Eismann tersely noted, “Because there is no statute granting judicial review of administrative proceedings enforcing a zoning ordinance, we vacate the decision of the district court…”
Judge Mitchell wasted the District Court’s and the Supreme Court’s time, the Staffords’ time and money, and Kootenai County taxpayers’ money because he failed to read and understand Idaho law.
Bill, can you cite any other instances where Judge John T. Mitchel has failed to read and understand Idaho law?
Comment by Dan — April 23, 2011 @ 8:27 am
Dan,
With the exception of Hosack who is a Senior District Judge and therefore appointed by the Supreme Court, all the District Court judges are elected officials. I am researching the records on appeal for all of the judges, including Hosack. Even though Hosack doesn’t stand for election, the public has some recourse through the Idaho Judicial Council if the public feels he should not be reappointed. The voters can not re-elect any of the other District Court judges, or if an individual judge’s conduct gets crossways of Idaho’s judicial ethics, the public can formally complain to the Judicial Council.
In our lawsuit against North Idaho College and the North Idaho College Foundation, one of Mitchell’s decisions contained a statement indicating he had neither read nor understood the “Lease Agreement” between the College and Foundation. The decision is in the public record of case number CV-2009-8934, and captioned “Memorandum Decision and Order Granting Defendant NIC’s ‘Motion to Dismiss or Deny Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration and Motion to Stay Discovery'”, filed 2-15-11. Judge John T. Mitchell’s revelatory statement is at page 11:
The “Lease Agreement” is the critical document in the lawsuit. It clearly states on page 2, paragraph 3, that the payments of $1,074,134.02 are semiannual lease payments payable on August 1 and February 1 of each lease year. Mitchell failed to read and understand that “semiannual” means twice yearly (also clearly indicated when the “Lease Agreement” identifies August 1 and February 1 as the exact dates in each year by which the payments must be made.)
Comment by Bill — April 23, 2011 @ 8:58 am
I just received an email from a reader asking why the Coeur d’Alene Press had not identified Mitchell in the article.
The article was from the Associated Press, so the Coeur d’Alene Press may have just ripped and printed without adding any information of its own. The Coeur d’Alene Press should have read the Supreme Court’s decision and identified the District Court Judge (Mitchell). District Court judges are elected, but unless the news media identify both good and bad decisions and the judges who made them, the public has little information on which to evaluate the performance of elected judges.
Comment by Bill — April 23, 2011 @ 9:05 am
I like the phrase in the court decision, quoted in the Press, that says, “Although it has been imaginative in seeking to justify its conduct, the county had no authority to withhold the certificate of occupancy…”
Imaginative in seeking to justify its conduct…
How would that translate into real, everyday language? Any want to take a stab at it? Maybe “CYA”?
Comment by mary — April 23, 2011 @ 9:49 am
Mary,
Another translation might be, “Nice try, but Commissioners Currie, Piazza, and Tondee are not as clever as they might have wished Kootenai County residents to believe.”
Comment by Bill — April 23, 2011 @ 9:59 am
I put the the entire calamity on the shoulders of Scott Clark for the original administrative decision,which like so many others his department has made, was in error.
Comment by Ancientemplar — April 23, 2011 @ 11:39 am
Ancientemplar,
You are correct about the blame being placed on Scott Clark. As many people in this County have experienced, he picks and chooses the ordinances and laws to enforce. The Departments attitude is, if we could get away with it than let’s do it. Accountability for these decisions MUST be addressed by the County Commissioners. Perhaps it is time to start looking for a new Director!
Comment by curious1 — April 24, 2011 @ 8:44 am
curious1,
Selective, differential, and preferential enforcement of the laws is what leads to the public’s loss of confidence in the laws and ordinances, in the people who pass them, and in the people charged with enforcing and adjudicating them. Abuse of discretion in enforcing laws and ordinances and adjudicating disputes over them has led some officials to eventually resort to soliciting and accepting bribes or gratuities in return for abusing his or her discretionary authority.
Comment by Bill — April 24, 2011 @ 9:05 am
Thanks for posting the actual opinion — the article is slightly misleading since nobody really “won” this case. More to the point, the ordinance is so horribly written that it is a little unfair to blame anyone for these cases.
The opinion seems to say that if part of the 25-foot buffer is already disturbed, the law doesn’t apply at all to more, worsening, disturbance — which, of course, makes little sense. Also, the opinion seems to say that the County cannot withhold an occupancy permit to someone in violation, mostly illustrating the lack of enforcement tools available to the county for these sorts of violations. And the whole case was tossed since there was no actual procedural mechanism to give a court any jurisdiction at all over disputes — which is such a ridiculous result, it’s hard to blame a lower court for trying to resolve the dispute anyway.
The county has made a couple of fixes to this ordinance already, and they are considering more. (This week, actually.) But the whole thing is a mess. Count me as someone who hopes the zoning re-write consultants hired by the county get started soon.
Comment by Terry Harris — April 24, 2011 @ 1:12 pm
Terry,
Your analysis is right on the money. Laws must be periodically reviewed to be updated to contemporary circumstances. For example, the election contest law requires that the contest lawsuit be heard within 30 days. Given today’s court calendars, that is darned near impossible.
You also made another good point — the law or ordinance must be enforced consistently from its inception. If laws or ordinances are not enforced consistently, it may make subsequent enforcement impossible, thereby denying citizens of whatever protections that law or ordinance was to have provided.
I disagree with you, though, when you say, “… it’s hard to blame a lower court for trying to resolve the dispute.” In this case, the District Court should have dismissed early on for lack of jurisdiction. Bending or violating the law because of good intentions contributes to subsequent differential or preferential enforcement of the law, because it sets a precedent for action. When that happens, the bent or broken law is just as useless as the outdated one. While a judge or justice who bends the law makes one side feel good, s/he acts unfairly and to the detriment of the other side. That does little to improve the respect for either his court or the law.
Comment by Bill — April 24, 2011 @ 2:58 pm
Bill, I was under the impression that if a law is broken — and I mean the law itself, not breaking the law — then the courts resolve it. That’s the way our checks-and-balances system works. So in a case like this, if a judge is confronted with a situation where the law is vague or just ugly, what can be done by either party for relief?
My thought is that if Mitchell had simply dismissed it, then the Bigger Bully would have prevailed. That’s not what I’d like to see.
Comment by Dan — April 24, 2011 @ 3:15 pm
Bill, you’re right of course, I was being a little flip. The fact that there’s no jurisdiction shows how screwed up the ordinance is — it’s code-writing 101 that you need a way to resolve disputes. If I recall correctly, the County patched up this gaping hole in the ordinance late last year. Too late for this case, though.
FWIW, it isn’t completely clear in the Supreme Court’s opinion, but Judge Mitchell isn’t the only one who missed the jurisdiction problem — it looks like neither party argued it in either court. Everybody may have assumed jurisdiction because, well, it certainly SHOULD be there. To Dan’s point, unless raising Constitutional issues, without jurisdiction, neither Court can do anything for either party. An ugly law just sits there and nobody gets relief.
Comment by Terry Harris — April 24, 2011 @ 5:11 pm
Dan,
Just because something has been passed into law does not mean a court would necessarily have jurisdiction over every aspect of the law. The prayer for relief would have been recited in the original complaint filed by the plaintiff. If the Court can’t grant relief due to defects in the law, there is no purpose in proceeding. That just costs everyone money, wastes time, and gets us all frustrated. The dangerous middle ground is that a Judge who is politically motivated can often find politically self-serving reasons for dismissing an action. Then it becomes a coin flip whether the Idaho Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court will right the wrong that judge has done. If the courts can’t or won’t act because the law doesn’t allow it, then it’s up to our legislators to fix the law. Good luck on that one.
Terry,
If the Appellants’ attorney John Magnuson, the Respondents’ attorney Deputy Prosecutor Pat Braden, and the honorable Judge John T. Mitchell all assumed the Court had jurisdiction, then the Idaho State Bar is in worse shape than even its harshest critics fear. Ugly laws need to be fixed by the Legislature. They should not be “fixed” through arbitrary and capricious enforcement by the Executive Branch or “fixed” from the bench by our Judiciary. Bad laws abound in Idaho, and they remain on the books until they are challenged and then fixed by the Legislature. Laws passed by the legislature are presume legal. Too often the laws passed lack enforcement provisions. [cynicism] Sometimes legislatures pass feel-good laws without enforcement provisions, because they don’t want the laws to be enforced against them, their owner/handlers, or their constituents. [/cynicism]
Comment by Bill — April 24, 2011 @ 7:14 pm