THE NH JUDIARY CONDUCT COMMITTEE NEEDS A SERIOUS INVESTIGATION. 

WITH A SPANK ON THE WRIST, ABUSIVE JUDGES ARE REPRIMANDED THEN PLACED RIGHT BACK BEHIND THE BENCH WITH A BABYSITTER, OR JUST RUNNINNG FOR THE HILLS TO RETIRE AND COLLECT MILION($) OR SO IN PENSIONS PAID BY TAXPAYERS; ISN'T STOPPING THE CONSTANT ABUSE OF POWER IN NH.

STOP NH GOVERNMENT FROM INFLICTING DECADES OF MENTAL ILLNESS THROUGHOUT THE STATE

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Judge called out for rude comments

By TODD FEATHERS
New Hampshire Union Leader May 18. 2018 4:29AM

"The last time the state’s Judicial Conduct Committee reprimanded Seabrook district court Judge Sharon DeVries, it said her actions were wrong but motivated by compassion.

In its two most recent reprimands, handed down in March, the committee found that rude comments DeVries made to litigants threatened the court’s impartiality.

One of the reprimands arose from a complaint in which a defendant accused the judge of publicly humiliating her for having a disability. In the other, DeVries questioned whether a defendant was stable enough to hold a security clearance and work for a defense contractor.

DeVries said in an interview that she respects and defers to the committee’s decision but disagrees with some of the accusations against her and regrets the mark on her record.

“I sort of liken it to how many people plead guilty to things they’re not guilty of — I know, I take those pleas,” she said.

“Some of it is the time, effort, money that would be required to contest something like that is huge. Yeah, it’s my personal reputation and am I upset about that? Of course.”

While the Judicial Conduct Committee was conducting the two investigations, DeVries was already enrolled in a retraining program at the National Judicial College, in Reno, Nev., as a result of a reprimand the committee issued in 2017. Following the newest sanctions, she will also have to complete an ethics course at the college and will be subject to monitoring in the courtroom.

While both of the most recent reprimands involved court cases from 2015, the reports were filed with the Judicial Conduct Committee on April 4 and April 10, 2017, several weeks after the committee issued a reprimand for DeVries in another case.

DeVries said she was surprised by the timing and thought the committee might have taken a sterner view of the complaints because they “piggybacked” on the other reprimand.

That matter began in 2015, when the New Hampshire Department of Public Safety accused DeVries of a “consistent pattern of judicial misconduct” as a result of her actions in 12 cases in 2014 and 2015.

The Judicial Conduct Committee eventually ruled in March 2017 that her actions in seven of the cases did not represent a violation of the judicial canons, but that in five cases she had unilaterally rejected or altered plea deals that both the prosecutor and defendant had agreed upon.

The committee had also reprimanded DeVries in 2009 for calling Superior Court Judge Larry Smulker, in a case she was not involved in, to request that he reverse his decision to release a juvenile from a detention facility. Smulker changed his order as a result of the call, but later reported the inappropriate contact to the Judicial Conduct Committee.

In those two cases, DeVries was “motivated by a compassion for others,” the committee wrote in its reprimand. But “then, as now, Judge DeVries had demonstrated a propensity to exceed the power of her office.”

In the first of the most recent reprimands, the Judicial Conduct Committee dismissed the majority of the accusations leveled against DeVries by a former litigant in her court, Joyce LaFrance, but determined that her comments suggesting LaFrance was not mentally stable enough to hold a security clearance threatened LaFrance’s right to be treated in a patient, dignified, and courteous manner.

In her response to the complaint, DeVries acknowledged that her comments were unnecessary.

In the second case, Wanda Cote, who was charged with assault, claimed as part of her defense that her knee was injured and required replacement surgery so she could not have committed the assault. Cote was a frequent plaintiff before DeVries, the judge said in an interview, and she had never before shown any evidence of physical impairment.

The Judicial Conduct Committee found that DeVries’ questioning of Cote regarding her injury was “overly zealous and fell well beyond a fact-finder’s need for clarification.”

It also ruled that DeVries had inappropriately polled the courtroom as to whether needing a knee replacement constituted a disability and referred to Cote as “somebody with that knee dragging along.”

DeVries said her question to the courtroom had been rhetorical.

Since 2011, the Judicial Conduct Committee has issued public sanctions against six judges, including DeVries.

Members of the committee declined to comment on a specific case, but the committee’s executive secretary, Robert Mittelholzer, said the nature and number of any judge’s reprimands will likely be taken into consideration if they are found to have violated the judicial canons again.

“If the judge finds him or herself in that situation again, I think the committee is going to evaluate how useful was that initial discipline and does it need to be anted up,” he said."

FACT 1: NH, IS AN ILLEGAL AND CURRUPT GOVERNMENT AND STATE.

FACT 2: DESPARATE TAX FREE NH STATE GOVERNMENT WILL BREAK ANY
               LAWS TO GAIN MONEY.

FACT 3: NOW BY ILLEGALLY DESPARATELY ROBBING

               PETER TO PAY PAUL.

FACT 4: NH IS IN CONTEMPT OF COURT NOT ONCE BUT TWICE NOW WITH
               UNITED STATES JUSTICE DEPARTMENT.

In September 2010, "The ten New Hampshire hospitals suing the state over Medicaid reimbursement rates do have a legal basis for their lawsuit. That’s according to an order issued today by a federal judge. 

The hospitals argue that the State’s slashing of more than $250 million in Medicaid funding in the last budget violates Federal guidelines. Those guidelines are meant to ensure adequate quality and access to health care for Medicaid recipients."

In April 2018, "New Hampshire is facing a budget shortfall of up to $36 million following a federal district court decision over hospital payments, setting up a high-stakes scramble among state officials to negotiate a solution ahead of a May 31 payment deadline.

The dilemma is a result of a failure by the Legislature to set aside funding last year in anticipation of the court’s decision. And it comes out of an ongoing, multi-state legal battle over how much state and federal governments must pay hospitals for uncompensated care under the Medicaid law.

Officials in the governor’s and state attorney general’s offices said they’re aware of the problem – which first appeared in early March – and are working with hospitals to craft a way forward. But the shortfall has thrown a political and financial wrench into an already-delicate time in the legislative calendar.

“They did not carry in the budget enough for the obligation,” said Scott O’Connell, an attorney representing a group of hospitals. “So somebody is going to be shorted.”

The issue stems back to the 2017 budget process. Last year, the Legislature set aside $166 million for the state’s uncompensated care fund in Fiscal Year 2018. That figure relied on a new payment formula from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) that allowed for lower payouts, even as hospitals warned the formula was improperly established and would be challenged in court.

On March 6, responding to a multi-state lawsuit, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia handed down a ruling siding with the hospitals. The decision voided the CMS formula nationwide, putting New Hampshire back on the hook.

Now, the state’s hospitals are pushing for the full sum they say is owed – about $237 million – $71 million more than has been budgeted, according to Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem. Roughly half of that would come from state funds, with the rest paid through a federal match.

John Formella, legal counsel for the governor’s office, confirmed Friday that the upper limit that could be owed by the state amounts to “approximately $36-37 million per year in fiscal years 2018 and 2019.”

And in an April 10 letter to the hospitals provided to the Monitor, Deputy Attorney General Ann Rice acknowledged that the March 6 decision created new obligations.

“The state fully intends to follow the law in the amount of DSH payments that will be made by May 31, 2018,” Rice wrote to O’Connell, referring to the “disproportionate share hospital payments” owed by the state. May 31 is the federally-mandated payment deadline to hospitals under the Medicaid law."

The question is who will NH government rob now to pay this debt? NH still hasn't completed their settlement with the United States DOJ to invest $30 million towards mental healthcare with all stipulations required in a 2 year frame that ended in 2015.

As I have been saying, NH taxpayers have been screwed in more ways than one for decades by NH's government, just to remain a tax free state.  The clock has already now counted down almost half of a new year already.  Will NH finally figure out how to clean their mess? 

TIME IS ALL NH ONCE HAD.  NOW THAT HAS RUN OUT AS WELL!