Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance v. Smith

¶ 38. Today’s plurality opinion announces a new standard of review for judicial performance cases that reach us via agreed recommendations: This Court no longer will conduct an “independent inquiry of the record,” but, instead, “where, as here, the judge and Commission agree on the facts, we ordinarily will accept the *898findings as true.” Plur. Op. ¶ 8. Because I cannot embrace this new standard, and because the agreed facts in the present case do not provide us a clear factual basis sufficient to support a finding that Judge Smith engaged in judicial misconduct, I respectfully dissent.30

¶ 39.…