Historic impeachment trial in New Hampshire begins

CONCORD, N.H. - The New Hampshire Senate opened the state's first-ever impeachment trial Monday, sitting as a jury to hear charges against State Supreme Court Chief Justice David Brock.

As the white-haired Brock looked on, House counsel Joseph Steinfield quoted from an opinion Brock wrote in 1996 about misconduct by a judge: ''A judge's duty to obey the canons, especially to avoid the appearance of impropriety, cannot be taken lightly.''

''Without judges, who are perceived and trusted by members of the public as impartial, the authority of the rule of law is compromised,'' Steinfield read as the landmark trial began.

The House voted in July to impeach the 64-year-old Brock, a high court justice since 1981 and chief justice since 1986.

The House accused Brock of lying to its investigators, making an improper call to a lower-court judge in 1987, soliciting comments from then-Justice Stephen Thayer about Thayer's own divorce case in February, and routinely allowing judges to comment on cases from which they were disqualified for conflicts of interest.

The allegations rocked New Hampshire's tight-knit legal community, whose luminaries include U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Work at the court effectively halted this spring when three of the five members stepped aside because of the scandal.

Attorney General Philip McLaughlin's investigation prompted Thayer's resignation in March and launched the impeachment inquiry. The House voted not to impeach two other justices implicated in the scandal.

The trial is expected to last two to five weeks. The defense was to present its case Tuesday morning.

Steinfield zeroed in on the 1987 case, a business dispute involving a powerful state senator. Brock has acknowledged calling a court clerk, but not the judge.

''The moment the Chief Justice places a phone call directly to a trial judge about a pending case, you have a corrosive effect on the requirement of impartiality,'' Steinfield said. ''It can't be allowed.''

In pretrial hearings last month, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to require a two-thirds vote for conviction, or 15 senators, instead of a simple majority. The vote was an acknowledgment of the extraordinarily high stakes.

The Senate left open the possibility of lesser penalties than removal from office if Brock is convicted. It also decided to let each senator determine the appropriate standard of proof.

The Senate did not agree on a definition of ''maladministration,'' one of the grounds for impeachment under the state constitution. The word is used in three of the four impeachment articles.

Brock's lawyers contend that nothing he did was serious enough to warrant conviction in the Senate. They say the constitutional grounds for impeachment - bribery, corruption, malpractice and maladministration - require evil intent or personal gain as a motive.

They also plan to stress the constitutional importance of a judiciary free of casual political interference over matters that, at most, merit scrutiny by the committee that disciplines judges.

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On the Net:

Supreme Court: http://www.state.nh.us/courts/supreme.htm

Legislature: http://www.state.nh.us/gencourt/ngencourt.html