Speaker 1  10:09:42
Assist in that, to support me in doing that work. And so I would just ask for a motion to establish that so moved.

Speaker 2  10:09:51
And just to clarify my understanding your motion is to approve the creation of a special committee, and that would consist of the vice chair, Michelle Valentine, Judge, Brian Harris and Steve stutter to investigate in response to the disclosure of ghcc materials, and to do so in consultation with our executive director and outside counsel. Yes, is that your motion second? Okay. Is there any further discussion on that motion? All those in favor, if we're going to do this the way that I typically will do this, all those in favor, raise your hand. That's unanimous inside of the room. I'm sorry online, for those of you in favor of that motion online, would you please raise your hand? I think that's all of you that was a unanimous. That was a unanimous Yes. Thank you. Okay, the second item that we need to address is how we deal with the confidentiality and

Speaker 1  10:11:00
distribution Yes. Representative tusher, raising his hand.

Speaker 2  10:11:05
Or Representative tusher, are you raising your hand in support of the motion, or are you requesting permission to comment? Okay?

Speaker 3  10:11:23
Me, Jordan, now we can hear you. We couldn't before,

Unknown Speaker  10:11:28
okay, the hand is down,

Unknown Speaker  10:11:31
not very, not clear.

Unknown Speaker  10:11:34
Well, he's on mute, yeah,

Speaker 2  10:11:36
and his hand is down, so I can assume that that was in response to the motion. And now you're okay. I have no idea what that

Speaker 1  10:11:50
means. Jordan, do you have can you say something? Yes, yes, we can. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4  10:12:00
Great. So I did have a comment before the vote, you missed my hand or what, but I was just curious, in terms of this committee,

Unknown Speaker  10:12:15
where in

Unknown Speaker  10:12:17
our statute, we have the ability to

Speaker 1  10:12:22
conduct section invested. Oh, it's Alex. So the rules, the admin rules, provide, you know, me, the ability to, you know, run, the operations. And so this seems to be a breakdown in the operations. And so what I'm looking for is assistance in looking at how we run the operations of the Judicial Conduct commission and looking out, you know what happened, and what I need to do to continue to safeguard our records, and part of doing that is understanding what happened. Yeah, absolutely. Can I just see if I answered his question? Jordan, was I able to answer your question? I can't tell if he's frozen or if my answer is shocking. Yeah. I think I know he's had a bit of a weak connection. Senator, grammar, can I take your question? Yeah, would this investigation include whether there

Speaker 3  10:13:49
any communications with the target of the investigation prior

Speaker 1  10:13:53
to our deliberations, by any JCC members? It's a great question. I don't know, right? Like, I don't know, you know, I don't know what it would be. I suspect that it might include that. It might include whether there's any other commissioners talk to anybody outside the commission about this, right, not just the target of the investigation, but other people that aren't members of the commission. I mean, it might include that if that's happening either scenario, the one you suggested or the one that I'm suggesting, then what do I do to mitigate that risk? I don't know, because I don't know, I don't know what happened. Does that answer your question? Senator, not entirely. So I guess the very simple answer is yes. It might include that.

Speaker 3  10:14:54
Does that answer your question? Not entirely? No. Okay, then I must either it does or it doesn't within the scope of the investigation. I'm sorry. Either it does include it or it doesn't within the scope of the investigation.

Speaker 1  10:15:08
Okay, then yes, it does. Is that better? Yeah, okay, sure, Michelle, did you have a question?

Speaker 5  10:15:18
I mean, just to clarify, my understanding is this is all designed to just ensure that we can have confidentiality. And so what may have happened here that we can address so that we're just we

Speaker 3  10:15:39
can ensure the confidentiality? Yeah, I'm I'm asking specifically, right? Your question? Yes. Well, he said it's part of it, so I need to know whether it is or it isn't. Because if you guys are on different pages, then I need to know if that's how it is. So does it include communications with the target of any investigation prior to the body making deliberations.

Speaker 5  10:16:06
I guess that's unclear to me whether it does so I think I answered that's fine with me. You said Yes,

Speaker 2  10:16:13
I did okay. I would assume that that's in the discretion of the special

Speaker 1  10:16:19
I mean, might absolutely include that. I'm not saying that I will, but yes, I mean the they may end up doing that, yes, yeah, Georgia, my

Speaker 6  10:16:33
sense is those are questions that should be asked. So in any case, is, do people feel the face, it's all right to have a conversation with someone, either for advice, or someone that might be part of the case, because that's him, but that's as I understand the statute. That's a that's something you don't do. But I think the investigation would there's no problem having it that robbery, because that could be a possibility of what may affect this where we are right now.

Speaker 1  10:17:07
That's right. That's right. Thanks, Georgia senator.

Speaker 7  10:17:10
I just wonder, as I'm trying to formulate this all in my mind, if part of putting this committee together is also to establish some of those questions, like, what? What will this committee ultimately undertake it. The case is coming together. Am I framing that decently, like that? The committee is coming together. The committee will be figuring out what it means to be big picture, and we will keep being informed of what the what is coming together like, and what it's finding.

Speaker 1  10:17:41
Okay, because I can't wait a month to talk to all of you, you know, and I need your all's perspective, because ultimately, you are the commission, you are openly responsible for the you know, compliance with the statute. And

Speaker 2  10:18:05
second item that we need to address today is how to address the confidentiality and distribution of JCB materials going forward, I know later on the agenda, we're going to be addressing judge, for instance, request to the commission, so sort of previewing that what I what I would like to do now is turn the time over to Alex to share whatever information that you believe Alex is appropriate regarding what we know to date about the disclosure of the JCC records and what steps you've taken so far to prevent future disclosures.

Speaker 1  10:18:39
Absolutely so I'm dancing between two spaces. As I do this one, I'm trying not to get into the details of the specific investigation. I know it's out there in the public, but that's for others like my responsibility is to continue to maintain the confidentiality and maybe anticipating and I appreciate Senator grammars question, I don't know a bunch of stuff yet, right? And so it's difficult for me to answer questions. So when I say I don't know, it's because, like, I don't know the answer to that question. You know, because we're still trying to sort through this. But of course, on April 17, just like many of you, I saw the KSL news report and I took when I realized that his record had been disclosed, I took certain steps, and then I'm just going to go through those steps. Some of those steps were to protect records, and some of those steps were to prepare myself in anticipation for questions that you may have. So I'll try and go through this as quickly as possible. As far as protecting records, I removed all access to our Google Drive where these records are maintained. As you know, many of you always see the Google link. That link takes you to the Google Drive and see those records. So all access to that was shut down. Also, I sequestered all emails associated with legislative accounts the reason is, I do keep our I have to keep our communications. When Georgia asks me a question or sends me the minutes like I keep our communications, those are state records. But because these records had come out of the legislature. And I don't know how they came out of the legislature. I just know that we released by the legislature. I sequestered legislature emails, all of them, if it was an email to a dot led account that not only includes members of the commission, but that includes to the legislative staff that I communicate your attendance at these meetings or your travel claims. So just all the LE accounts, just sequestered those and that would be emails with links or emails with attachments. I often send you to those accounts, as well as to all of your accounts, both types of emails, right? But they're and they're slightly different from a forensic perspective. Next I went and I sat down with the staff, and we had a training session again about the confidentiality of JCC records and our limitations of disclosure. I did that immediately, because I'm not the only person that works up there, and I expected has happened that they would also get many of the same requests that some of you all are receiving. I also sent out requests, both personal and via drama, to the legislature, specifically the House, the Senate, our legislative records and O, L, R, G, C, the Office of I'm having my senior moment, Legislative Research and General Counsel. Thank you. You know to see if they knew about this disclosure. So trying to anticipate questions. I finally, I notified the judiciary, the Iran board, that we were aware of this and we were taking steps because it affected a member of the judicial and then, of course, I notified you all, in anticipation that you all may be receiving requests a I hear you're a JCC Commissioner. What happened? Finally, I did respond to I also got media requests. Everything from they got it. Can we get what they got? I haven't given anything out that much money. You know, usually all drama requests are denied, as per our statute, but I responded to the various media requests,

Speaker 1  10:23:30
and so that was kind of the initial lockdown that being said. As you all know, we we still have to maintain our access to the public, so I still have complaints coming in. We're still assigning those complaints to investigators. Investigators are continuing to work, and because it's more of a statistical thing, I can assure you that when we can meet again in confidence, I will have twice as much work for you that I normally do each month, right? Because the works continuing. So you can be assured that the work of the staff continues. It's just the work of the Commission itself, because that's where the distribution of materials occur, right? It didn't come out of the staff part of this. So that's what I've done to date. In addition, I have been meeting with ETs security professionals, and IT folks talking to them about what additional measures we could take. And I know the chair has has some time for that. That's his for that that's as far as I know, the disclosure of materials that we believe was confidential happened, and then I took steps to try and ensure no additional disclosure of our materials might happen. Thank you, Alex.

Speaker 2  10:25:01
Does anyone have any questions for Alex? Alex, have we been provided with a basis by the legislature of why they released the records, or what their legal reasoning is, or why they said that they felt like they could

Unknown Speaker  10:25:23
produce those records? Do those records,

Speaker 1  10:25:27
no the questions been asked, and it is either no response or you can't tell me the responses. So like you all have read the media, and I've heard what's been reported in the media, but from where the disclosure came from? I don't have an answer to that question.

Speaker 2  10:25:54
Thank you for that report. Seeing no further questions. The next thing I want to move to is discussing how we re establish accountability and trust. I think that we all would agree that it's critical for this commission determining how we can re establish accountability and trust in our commission and in our process. And to provide context for that discussion, I've asked Alex to provide just a historical overview of the JCC and why we have confidentiality protections afforded to our records.

Speaker 1  10:26:32
So I think everybody in here now I'm looking at Linda excuse, my most recent commissioner has been to the national level training. And the JCCs in the United States, they're all set up like how their populace wants them set up. You know, happened started back in the 60s, and in Utah, you know that Utah eventually decided to establish a judicial conduct commission, and they did so with a constitutional provision. At that point, they started to make choices. The Utah JCC, as you know, is not the same. It's not designed the same as Colorado or California or New York or Florida, we have our peculiarities, and so that's why the quick historical touchdown in the Constitution, it talks about confidential hearings. And so that's kind of where the ball started rolling as to what would be just confidential and what would be public for the state of Utah. Subsequently, the statute was written and provisions were made in the statute. The statute gets changed all the time. Thanks to Representative tusher, we had a statutory change just this legislative cycle. I say that because other States choose different places and where to maintain their confidentiality, this isn't a choice that Alex makes. This is a choice that the statute makes. And to further understand that, I know some of you are going to HATE me for saying this, but that's why in your binder I have placed your commission binders. One of the things that's in there is a report from a judicial conduct commission, commissioners like you task force that got together in 1997 to decide why Utah would be the way Utah is. And so if you want to get into the details of it, I won't take up time here. But eventually Utah decided that for Utah records would be confidential from the start of the process, meaning the submission of a complaint, until the Supreme Court issued a public order, and that Supreme Court order would outline what became public or not, and we post those on our website now, provide you examples. If you look on the for example, the judge Dow case, the Supreme Court decided that entire case would become public, which means the complaint is public, and all the work that the JCC did, the investigators report the evidence collected, everything became public. Supreme Court published it that way. There are other cases where the Supreme Court only makes their order public meaning, their public reprimand or their public censure, whatever it is, they don't make the entire case, and the statute is designed to allow that. So again, that's compliance with statute. So that's kind of the spirit of Utah JCC. I mean, there's other special things about Utah JCC, and unfortunately, Senator Brammer and Senator plumb get to listen to me testify each year when I talk about the Utah way where we have legislators as part of our JCC that is unique solely to the state of Utah. There is no other JCC that does that. I like it. I testify in favor it, because I think you all bring a perspective that's incredibly important and help us work through these things. But that's just a personal opinion like that's the Utah's decision in statute is to have that membership. The other unique thing that I would say as as we work through this and think about it, is we have talked with the judges that are the subject, right? And we went out and we asked them, Do you want to know about this? How do you feel about this? And for reasons which they articulated and reasons returned the task force,

Speaker 1  10:31:33
they did not want they wanted the confidentiality. Because for those of you who are lawyers, there's a thing called forum shopping, and they didn't want people to use the JCC as a tool. This judge is biased because there's a complaint against that judge in front of the JCC, so clearly that judge is going to rule against me because I complained about it. So that's a very important interest that was captured by the judicial another important interest, and I'll refer again to the judge Dow case, which is completely public, so I can that complaint came from an employee. So employees are often some of our best observers of judicial behavior, and that employee, when we conducted that investigation, and you can read in the investigation, actually expressed concern about saying anything, because that employee has to go back to work for that judge. Of course, in that case, we took extra measures to protect the employee. But as I've said before, and is in these Task Force findings, employees attorneys that have to appear, there are a number of people who are worried about complaining about a judge, and we want to hear from them, because they have very important perspective as well as things that we would never see. And so for that reason, Utah chose to keep this process confidential. So with that's kind of the constitutional and the legis statutory basis. The last piece that I would add to that is we make you all take an oath as commissioners right, an oath of office, and that oath is meant to impress the importance of all these policy concerns that Utah's have entrusted us with. And those aren't the only oaths. I'm an attorney. I've got my professional oaths as a member of the bar, Judge Harris and judge Edwards. Have you know, their judicial oaths as well, but all that's supposed to help impress the importance of kind of compliance with the statute and the Constitution. So that's kind of the historical basis. I'm happy to answer questions. I would say there is a unique thing in the statute, and it happened with a commission member. So it's not that the JCC hasn't kind of dealt with this sort of stuff before, and in that case, it was Justice homonis. And when justice hamonas went up for to become a member of the Supreme Court, the legislature wanted to know how he was voting in the JCC, which I mean, the legislature has a responsibility to ask the questions that have asked, and I respect that, but at that time, the statute didn't allow for that, so we made it. The legislature made a specific provision for the statute to allow disclosure for that purpose, and that's why there's that unique piece of the statute. Again, what I want to ensure, and what I want to impress on is I want to do things for our statute and for our Constitution, not in a rush to do it. You know, I just want to make sure we do this the Utah way, as they say, and not just, you know, haphazardly, and so that. You know, these are all the things that I'm struggling with as an executive director, because that's what I my oath of office is to ensure that everyone myself, my staff and the commissioners are complying with the statute and the Constitution.

Speaker 2  10:36:13
Thank you, ma'am, thank you for taking the time to do that, Alex. So one of the things that I've tasked you with doing is figuring out, I mean, you, you had indicated to us the commission that you didn't feel comfortable sending out any additional investigative materials to us until we came back today and had a discussion about how we could ensure the confidentiality or take additional steps to protect the confidentiality of JCC records going forward, and I know that you've looked into a number of themes there, so I'm going to turn the time back over to you to address so from from your perspective, what? What additional themes can we do? And then I would like to open it up for discussion, yeah, in the commission, because this is something I feel like we need to talk about as a body.

Speaker 1  10:37:02
But can you open that discussion? Absolutely, I will. Try and talk to it, but please understand, I'm a retired Marine, and so my levels of diplomacy are horrible, right? This disclosure didn't happen because my staff didn't do their job. This disclosure didn't happen because somebody broke into our offices and photocopied something so physical security and staff security is sound. This disclosure happens because of commissioners. I'm not saying who. I'm just saying it happens somewhere from my desk to a commissioner, and so that's why we have to have this kind of a discussion, right? Because it's to reinforce the responsibilities with the commissioner. Now, there are things that I steps that I could take, for example, as a fail safe, right? I can print up a copy of the materials and put it in the office upstairs and ask us commissioners to appear early before our meetings and review it in camera. And then when you leave the office, you don't leave with a copy. You know, I used to be for about 20 years, I had a top secret, compartmentalized, you know, clearance for the federal government as a Marine. And I will tell you there were programs that that was what we did. You know, I walked into a double sealed room with red lights and guards, and I think that's going overboard, but that's my baseline is where I could start at I don't know that that's a good place to end up. And I don't think anybody, I really think we would run the your work off the rails. But the discussion is, is okay if I can't do that, right? Like, if I can't do everything in Alex's power. Can we discuss what would make me feel comfortable that I'm complying with the statute, and what would make each of you all feel comfortable that we maybe re establish confidentiality so that that's my intro to that. And I see Senator grammar has got a question as well. Well, it's, you know, I think the question was, how did this happen?

Speaker 3  10:39:25
Number one, I think you have to understand how the grammar process works in the legislature. So none of us receive the request personally, you know, to produce our documents or anything like that. The legislature receives it, and then they mine any public records that are there, doing the emails that we have. And so, you know, there's nothing that like, I don't think that either grant or Senator colon received any like, Hey, we got this. We're searching your records, right? I got that. I didn't and the Senate didn't respond to the grammar request, so it went to the house and to the Senate. The Senate did not respond. And then my understanding is the house produced the document, and I don't think I mean, I wasn't consulted as far as whether it was going to be produced or not. I don't provide an email to them or anything like they can look in my emails. But you know, that's, that's kind of and so I don't know that it was,

Speaker 1  10:40:29
you know, something, that a member of the committee did anything on this senator. I think that's fair. Thank you for and like I said, undiplomatically, I probably I'm not pointing a finger at a commission member. What I'm pointing a finger at is from my death communication, there's a pipeline. How do I protect that pipeline? Staff does nothing wrong. But I think

Speaker 3  10:40:55
the bigger issue is okay, well, we have this could have easily been on the same plane as the courts having a record and the courts receiving a grammar request and the courts deciding to produce a document, okay, you would have the same, you know, issue there. And so, you know, if the question is, should we do our public business on private email, the answer, in my mind has to be No, we are not supposed to. We're advised every, you know, all the time that we're not supposed to, and I'm not comfortable with, you know, I can't, I won't use my law firm email for public stuff, and people try to send me that because it's a public email. People try to send me stuff to keep it private, and I always am trying to respond with my, you know, le.utah.gov email, because I, I, I did a lot of you know. And so in any event, I do feel strongly that what is done needs to be done in the open. And so I guess the question is, you know, is the is the trust issue. Can it be solved? I mean, the same thing goes for the University of Utah. If you're using your University of Utah, you know, or your law firm email, you know, do you want to open that up to public records requests to go and mine that email for public issues, which you know, technically if, if it's going out of here and going to someone who serves on the committee and they're using their private email, they're supposed to receive a copy of the grammar request and search their

Speaker 1  10:42:29
private email for the same thing, you know, unless you have access to it to search it yourself, you know. So I think you really well boxed the challenge that I'm it, which is why I couldn't send anything out anymore. It's not you, right? And I say that to everyone, it's, how do I protect these records?

Speaker 2  10:42:54
Well, let me chime in too, because part of this is we have an informational deficit. We haven't received any information from the legislature as to how there is my understanding. Know how it happened, what process they took, what email they searched, how they decided to produce which records, what records right went out. We don't even know the basis at this point under which the legislature produced the records. And so it makes it really challenging, I think as we're sitting here trying to figure out how we protect the confidential, the confidentiality of our records when we don't know why and how and under what circumstances the records were produced before, because certainly with regards to like, private law firm records, I my law firm is not subject to grammar. So I'm not going to have anyone going in and searching my my law firms, private emails, and producing them without my knowledge. If that is, in fact, what happened, which we do not know yet. And I know that, look, Alex, I want to go too far down this road, because we've established a special committee that is going to be investigating how and why and what happens with regard to these disclosure on records, and I want that to stay firmly within the purview of the special committee. But when we have an informational deficit, it does make it challenging for us to figure out how to best protect the confidentiality of our records

Speaker 1  10:44:17
going forward, Madam Chair, and again, you've illustrated, between you and Senator bramry really illustrated an interesting nuance to us, right? As Senator Brammer just said, the Senate said they had nothing Well, the legislature said, what they said was they didn't respond, which is the same as a denial. Fair enough. Let me restate it. Then the Senate denied the grammar request. The house didn't, and yet, we all know that members of the Senate and members of the House received the exact same thing. So I mean, I'm left in what's that? Oh, well, we know what I sent and we know who I sent it to and what I sent to Representative Miller and Representative tusher is exactly what I sent to Senator plum and Senator grammar. So the two bodies, these two governmental agencies, entities, have the same stuff, and yet they each behave. Would it be fair to say differently?

Unknown Speaker  10:45:23
Senator, yeah, no, I hope

Speaker 1  10:45:25
that house produced something in the Senate didn't. Yes. So, I mean, what am I to do with that, right? Like I can't, I can't, and I can't make rules that, okay, this only applies to the house. I mean, we, whatever we do, has got to be uniform. Alex, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 7  10:45:43
Senator, plummet, I think I saw that you had your hand that way. Yeah, no, it's fine. I think I as I'm trying to make the parallels between the world that I live in, where confidentiality is a big deal as well in medicine, and the parallels in the legal world, in this space, where confidentiality is a very big deal. Deal. I'm really struggling because, for example, when Jim Brown was talking about University of Utah and grandma bowl information, we have something that we attach to emails that are about specific patient phi, called protective health information that that makes it so that it is in a specific bubble of protection, and I'm trying to figure out a whole new thing, I suppose, for this commission, unless maybe we can. But it feels to me like that's what's almost needed, that there is something that is untouchable for these critical, confidential investigations and dialogs that we have, because the one piece I feel like that we haven't in our circle talking about this included, is the trust of the public, which I feel from many angles, the public is doing a lot of jitteriness about this, as well as the trust of the whole system, like, how is a clerk ever going to feel comfortable making a report

Unknown Speaker  10:47:04
knowing that perhaps it would end up in the right

Speaker 7  10:47:09
email in a news piece. So I guess I'm trying to put those worlds together and overlap them in a way where I feel like the people being investigated in this space will have the same protections that patients have their confidentiality is just as important, and I don't quite know how we do that, but that's what I'm hoping

Speaker 2  10:47:29
I can feel as a result with well. And let me tell you my my key goal in leading this meeting today is to figure out something, and maybe it will. I don't want the the perfect to be the enemy of the good in this discussion, because we can certainly continue to have ongoing discussion as our special committee obtains additional information and has a better understanding of what happened, perhaps that will inform what we need to do. But our staff right now cannot continue to operate and provide us with records, or at least, my understanding is staff is not comfortable providing commissioners with the records that we need to review in order for our commission to do its job, and so today, before we leave, we we collectively as a commission, need to come to a consensus as to how we are going to protect our records going forward, and to Alex's initial I'm going to call it a fail safe, for lack of a better term, right? A fail safe would certainly be Alex is going to have binders of documents, and we're all welcome to come down at our convenience and review the binders here at the JCC office in advance of the meeting and come I don't I don't like that option. I don't think any of us likes that option. It's not practical, but it would be safe. It would be one way that we could ensure that our records are safe. Again, do I like it? No. Is it convenient? No, that's the thing that we need to do in order to assure our public and our judiciary and the clerks and the other witnesses who might want to come forward, like I'm willing to take that inconvenience, but I would like for us to talk as a commission. Is there anything else that we can do that would make us comfortable? Because, to Senator grammars point, I mean, I'm not comfortable sending records to a legislative email given what happened. And so anyway, any other ideas? I mean, Alex, I know you looked into some technology issues, and perhaps before, if you can hold your question for just a second, okay,

Speaker 3  10:49:34
go ahead. So oftentimes, when we're putting together a larger deal or an issue where you have two companies that are considering a merger, and they can't keep the documents from each other. There's a thing called a data room, and everyone has their own login, and you can see exactly what they access and what they do within the data room. And it's just, we would all have a login, and you would put up the materials. You'd say the materials are available. We we log into the data room, we review it, and we're out. And that's that's pretty common in, you know, a lot of legal content. In fact, we, we even had it built for, we're having the AGs office do that for certain evidence that that can be, there's a there's certain categories of evidence where they needed to produce documents, but they didn't want to have everyone go down to the AGs office to go look at it physically, and they didn't want to give it to the defense counsel, you know, for no good reason. So they, they're, they're doing technology, and so this is being used a lot more, because then you have a specific log, and you can know when it was accessed, what was accessed, how it was accessed. You can do an audit trail on everything that's going on. And that's a and it's not a it's generally not prohibitively expensive to do.

Speaker 1  10:50:56
Thank you, Senator, I wrote that down. I'll raise that. I'll raise that one with the IT security thing as well. Thank you, Alex.

Speaker 2  10:51:05
I know that you're looking for some technological issues to your options. Do you want to Sure?

Speaker 1  10:51:12
So some of them the state of Utah, or at least my part of the state of Utah, because I know the judicial uses different platforms, but we use the Google platform as the enterprise solution for our IT needs, and Google workspace has some security features that we could put in place. Some of those core features include access and authentication. It includes timed access, so like, up to a certain point you're allowed and then you can no longer access those records. It does the same thing, as far as creating the audit trails you find out who's accessed hasn't the other possibility. And I know we do this up at Summit County. I'm not, I mean, I'm sure many places do they, they give us a iPad. And, you know, because, again, I'm dealing with multiple platforms, right? Some of you all are accessing these emails via a government laptop or a personal laptop or a professional laptop, right? And so instead, I can make it accessible only by a specific piece of hardware, like hardware being that iPad only that iPad right would be able to access it. Some of the other things that we're talking about is, again, with all this stuff, I have to archive it. Even our confidential meetings are archived right because they're government records. Yes, they're confidential records, but I still have to keep that record, and so what I can't do is I can't tie it to Brady grammar or Alex Peterson or Gehrke Thompson, because what happens with that record is, Once you leave once that person leaves that account, becomes an archive account which goes outside the control of the JCC. So instead, I got to create dummy accounts that stay within the JCC. Is another option that we can explore. Senator and again, this is actually one of the reasons I love having legislators on the commission you identified probably the number one challenge to any of these things, which is money, right? You can make something as secure as you're willing to pay for it. And so the legislators would you know, need to understand that, of course, ensuring protecting these records is going to come with a cost. Fortunately, the senators and the legislators have taken care of us in that regard. But what? How much is that right? Like? How much does a data room cost? I have no idea how much would 11 iPads dummy accounts and implementing these enhanced Google workspace cost? I don't know that. But yes, there are technological solutions. Moving it to the next part of this. What does that mean for you as commissioners, it's going to be a lot more inconvenient to access the materials than you that has been in the past and right? Because you're going to have, you know, if we implement double encryptions, right? That means putting in your password and then maybe receiving a text message if I do iPads, that's signing for government property. You know, again, as a former Marine, and I know Joe is former retirement, we hate signing for government property because you're responsible for it. And that's one more thing that you're having to carry around in your personal life. You know, I am sensitive to how much you all get paid to do this work, right? It's volunteer work, and I appreciate that. And adding to that burden, you know, is something that I'd have to ask of the commissioners.

Speaker 2  10:55:39
It feels like to me, cost is one consideration, but the preeminent concern right now is what is going to be effective? Yeah, and how quickly can we implement whatever decision it is that we make? Because we have a meeting scheduled next month, and we can't move forward until we as a commission, feel comfortable about the way in which we're distributing our investigative materials to our commissioners going forward. Yes, Judge Harris, you have your hand up.

Speaker 8  10:56:10
Yeah. In talking to a couple of judges who used to be on this commission in years gone by, back in the Holland Winchester days, they report to me that there was a low tech version of this that happened back then. That was all paper. If any of you have been around long enough, you know, I'm new here, relatively speaking, if any of you been around long enough have first hand knowledge about this, then I have fine. Feel free to chime in. But apparently it worked, as every commissioner would receive it in paper form. It would either be hand delivered to them if they were local, or it would be FedEx to them if they were down south. And that would come with a return FedEx envelope with a sticker where the commission would read the packet. And when the commissioner was finished the packet, the commissioner would then put the packet back into FedEx and FedEx at back to Colin Winchester, where it would be destroyed. Those who received and delivery packets were asked to bring the packets with them to the commission meeting, and at the end of the commission meeting, they would turn the paper in the column and they would be destroyed. And that's the way, apparently, things function for quite a while. Now, I know that would be a lot more work to photocopy, you know, pages, times and so forth. FedEx does us thing, but I I'm guessing that significantly lower than some of these technological options,

Speaker 9  10:57:43
we could at least this, however many months it takes, and we can be a little

Speaker 8  10:57:47
more high tech. I like, sorry, I like that proposal. But if during the period of time that a legislator who subject to Grandma,

Speaker 2  10:58:04
I has a physical copy of the report. If a reporter were to submit a grammar request while a legislator had that paper packet, would then the legislature produce the documentation because it was in the possession of the legislator when the grammar request came in. I don't know. Maybe, well, I want

Speaker 10  10:58:23
to be responsible to that. Because, I mean, if, I mean, here's the thing, there was a, there was a tab in my inbox that was sent to me I had control over, and I don't check my legislative email, like, very often, not in session. And so someone else who had control of my email just dove in, got it, and their legal analysis was, you know, whether it's malicious or just patently wrong. They weren't entitled to that or releasing that. Now, if I had a physical copy and I got a grammar request, I wouldn't be responsible grammar request because that's protected. I know it's protected, and I'm an attorney, I can articulate why, but I'm not dealing with some other lawyer breaking in my house, grabbing my physical copy and then saying, You're wrong. Representative this public. So I think that I mean, if indeed the only issue here was either, you know, incompetence or malice from the lrgc, that can be remedied by making sure the lrgc doesn't have any potential

Unknown Speaker  10:59:17
access to Jason, see records.

Unknown Speaker  10:59:20
I appreciate that. Representative Tushar, you have your hand up,

Speaker 4  10:59:24
yeah, I was just gonna say Alex made reference to this, but we did pass a bill this last session, I guess fortuitously, that does carve out in grandma JCC complaint materials. It goes into effect tomorrow. So hopefully that is on the table, and I think that resolves a lot of the concerns that we're talking about in terms of having to find something over whether it would be ground on board.

Speaker 7  10:59:55
I don't want it in. I don't want it anywhere near my legislative emails. I don't feel comfortable. I don't and I don't know how to remedy that, other than the paper things which I You already said to me, but I'm I'm not comfortable that I could inadvertently be the reason that somebody's confidential information was no longer confidential that so I don't know what that means, but I'm not going to sit in An office somewhere and read stuff with pika at my side. So I don't know what we do, but I don't feel, I don't trust the legislature right now on this, I feel very uncomfortable for what we've done, for what the legislature has done. I feel, I really am uncomfortable with it. Representative tusher, do you still have your hand up for you asking to speak again? I can't tell No, no, I suppose,

Speaker 2  11:00:45
yeah, I'm sorry. Did I interrupt you? Were you commenting? No, and I appreciate your reference to this household 186 that you ran last session. I guess the concern that I have is that if there is some suggestion that it's changed the law with regards to the protectiveness of the JCC records, I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with that. You'll recall when you presented this to the House Judiciary Committee. You represented to that committee, quote, currently the JCC records are not subject to grandma. That was about 47 minutes into that hearing, and at roughly a minute 12 in response to public comments that wanted right public during this this bill that was run, they said, We want to have access to the JCCs confidential records, and you would address that issue. You said, quote, let me just take a moment now to talk about the grandma issue. I think it is important for everyone to understand that whether we pass this bill or don't pass this bill, the records currently held by the JCC are protected from grandma. This is simply clarifying it in the statute, but there is another statute that covers it right now, and you went on to later say, quote, This doesn't change the status quo, whether this bill passes or not. And so I just, I want to be cautious as we as a commission are moving forward with this concept that because there was a change to the grammar statute that just clarified, what I understood was already protections that we're extending to the JCC, that that is going to do it. I like this idea, based on what Representative Miller said about going analog, taking it back to the roots, and just providing physical copies, because if to me, that would give me a lot more assurance that as long as it stays within the possession of the individual Commissioner. Nobody is going to go in and hopefully, you know, break through your your files and your drawers to produce something in response to a grammar request. So, I mean, maybe like, and I don't want to like short circuit this, because I also really hate technology. So the idea that we would go back to an analog appeals to my paper nature, and perhaps Alex, as the special committee is investigating, maybe we can find some other way to still allow for technology and future in future meetings. But for right now, again, we have, y'all on the staff side, have really important cases I know in the pipeline for us to decide the next meeting. So I want to figure out a process.

Speaker 1  11:03:28
As I'm listening to you all discuss this, I'm thinking to myself, If you give me the analog option, it will give me the space to more cogently explore the technological options, right? Like, I'm trying to implement technology too fast for even me to understand, right? So that would give us more time, and it would give me more time to adequately explain to you. And you know, using Senator parameters, example, a data room sounds great. What is that? Right? Like? What? And, you know, takes time to get comfortable with and exactly test it. And Amy and I did live when I came aboard. We lived in the era of analog. I remember me. And to I do remember driving around to Trent Hall's home, walking through the corridors of, you know, the court of appeals to hand stuff off. Analog worked. What changed? It's the thing that changed everything in the world covid changed, and so when we went to covid We tried to. And so when we went to covid, we tried to find solutions that didn't require as much. I think I could put together analog before the next meeting, if that's where we end up, and then I can continue to explore the other things. Ma'am, I think Senator Tester also had some comments, yes, and I am

Speaker 2  11:05:11
not ignoring. Representative tusher, I was just going to say, it sounds like we may have been zeroing in, at least on a temporary solution that will allow our our business, to move forward. Yes. Representative tusher,

Speaker 4  11:05:27
yeah. I was just gonna say, I appreciate you sharing those quotes. I My comment in terms of the change in legislation was specific to the comment around whether, if you had an analog paper copy, whether someone be propelled to hand that over because of grandma. I think it's very clear in the statute that gets in perspective that is not ground level.

Speaker 2  11:05:51
Thank you for your comment. So do we can? I mean, I suppose maybe I don't need a motion for this, but do you, does anyone have any concerns? We all feel comfortable with instructing staff that for right now to protect the confidentiality of JCC

Speaker 1  11:06:08
records that cut you off. Because what I want to do is I want to explain what analog looks like, so that when people answer yes or no to your question, right, like we're all sharing the same expectation. Because I and I it's wonderful that I've got some of the commissioners online. So analog means one weakness of analog is, of course, a commissioner. I don't think this is I'm not saying this is happening. I'm identifying the weakness a commissioner could still photocopy that at their week pleasure, right? Scan it into a PDF, or let somebody share it, or leave it on a desk somewhere where Kika You're right. So that so again, right, like, I want to be honest about the risks associated with whatever we all have going forward. And that goes back to the earlier discussion is, if we entrust analog records to you, it's on you as a commissioner, and my security professional articulated it very well to me, he said, you know, it comes to a point that really all you can do is waggle your finger at somebody. So with respect, this is Alex waggling his finger at you that the analog, you know, puts it on you to protect these records, right? Because you'll get them on Thursday and then by Tuesday morning or Saturday morning, and then I need them dropped back in the mail. Or if you come here, we can take care of them. If you don't, and you have a court, a heavy court calendar, right, Judge Edwards or somebody, and you can't make it here, that's fine, but I need to know that you will be destroying them, as opposed to collecting archives of analog records. And again, all I can do to assure that is make this very uncomfortable verbal declaration of me wagging my finger at you, saying, I need you all to do things as well. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker  11:08:33
Ma'am. Sorry, Steve, you have your hand up. Yes, sir.

Speaker 9  11:08:37
Thanks. Jayden, I just want to make couple comments. One, I don't like your idea that we have to go to the office and look at something those of us that live 300 miles away. That's just nonsensical. It works for those of you who live in downtown Salt Lake. I do want to comment. Ted chair talked about methodology, where the packet was sent out to us in hard copy. We're responsible for it. We return it, or we come to the commission meeting and hand it to the staff member. Shredding purposes, I think there's that's the way that I currently do it, and it works very effectively. I received a pack of two or three days before and before I come to the meeting, I place it in a secure place when it's in my custody. Maybe that's from a background of dealing with top secret documents, I guess. But it's not subject to being stolen if there's a burglary in my house. So that system, as Harris mentioned, works. Well, yeah, to be clear, Steve, I did not like my proposal recommending that's just an option.

Speaker 2  11:09:36
And look, I would like to think that we can trust the commissioners not to share investigative materials. I certainly would like to think that. So it feels to me, and unless Alex, that you have any strong objection, or you feel like we really need to go to the fail safe option, it feels like to me that the consensus here is, let's go back to the analog system. Prepare hard copy packets that you will either hand deliver to commissioners who live in this area or work in this area, you'll overnight packets to the commissioners that are away from this location, and then you'll coordinate to make sure that those packets are destroyed and returned. Yes, and they'll only be distributed in paper until further notice.

Speaker 1  11:10:24
Yes, particularly that until further notice, meaning I have the option to continue to explore technological solutions,

Unknown Speaker  11:10:34
and I Yes. Judge Harris, yeah.

Speaker 8  11:10:39
And to Alex's last comment, my view is, is that the analog way of doing things should only be viewed as a temporary bridge or stop gap solution until we figure out something better that's, you know, more high tech, and that doesn't have any of the concerns Alex just mentioned about, you know, physical copies being left on a desk or photocopied or or whatever have so I think this is sort of the best thing we've got for now and will enable us to do our business at our next meeting and moving forward. But I think it should be viewed as final solution. I think should task Alex continuing his search, try to find something higher tech and securely that would work better long

Speaker 2  11:11:27
term well into your bridge comment, I also would anticipate that what our findings are of our special committee that once we figure out how and why our records were released by the House, that may also inform going forward what steps we on a forward going basis, agreed I alluded to at the beginning, we need to respond to judge Morgan someone's email. But before I do that, I know, Alex, you wanted to talk about the idea of how we make steps to build trust. Again, we just talked about protecting our confidential records, right? But one of the things that you had asked me to talk about is how, how we as a commission can take steps to build trust with complainants and with judiciary, both the judges and the staff who may participate or bring complaints to our commission and also the general public, is, do you still want me to touch on that? Do we want to explore that today? Is that a

Speaker 1  11:12:29
yes please? Because I think yes please. I know we have kept our focus of discussion on internally, right? Like, how do we protect Trust and Accountability internally? And what I would appreciate is a discussion now, because this didn't just happen internally. It happened externally. And I would reference again, if this is the Utah way, right, if the Utah way is to maintain these confidentiality, then how let's look at what I have to do to talk to the public, to talk to attorneys, to talk to victims, and I appreciate judge Mortensen's email where he discussed talking To the judicial because as we do our business, all those people participate, and they add value, whether it's bringing up the complaint or helping us resolve a complaint. And so you know, they're left wondering, well, not only what happened? But okay, that happened. What are you going to do? What is it going forward? I think that was the thrust of maybe judge Mortensen's concern. I know he asked from the judicial perspective, but I would ask that we discuss it, not just from the judicial we don't, I mean, we don't necessarily just serve the judiciary, right? We serve the Utah citizens, as Steve is often to point out, you know, how do I make sure that the public, the people who complain, who have to appear before judges, are comfortable continuing to bring their complaints to us. I mean, some of the stuff that we see, as you all know, could be very embarrassing. We have all sorts of as you all know, members who participate in the judicial system. You know people with their children, divorce matters, estate matters and and some of the stuff, as we dig into their records and their complaints, is highly embarrassing to them, and we want to make sure that they're comfortable if they have a complaint, we want to be able to hear it. We don't want them to be afraid that if they complain, the personal details of their life are suddenly going to become public well.

Speaker 2  11:15:15
And I would push back and say, I think that our judicial combat commission serves, first and foremost, the people of Utah, and we do that through evaluating and responding to complaints against the judiciary that the people of Utah are the people that we as a commission serve, first advisor, an independent constitutional entity. We are separate. We are separate from the legislature. We are separate from the executive branch. For a reason. Do you have Yes?

Speaker 6  11:15:43
When I first got this information, my first thing was, why would you serve on this kind of commission? Everything that you honor has just been bought. And I thought you just resigned. It doesn't I mean, you tethered the commission. Importantly, I don't want some kind of thing that doesn't work how it should to reflect on all of us. And secondly, going back to what we talked about, we staff to the level that we now can quite timely, get information back to people who are concerned about whether they were served in the judicial this kind of thing just pushes all that back in a way, you're victimized yourself by the commission if we can't operate in the integrity of what we all did our old foreign defense, I'd like to serve, and I know that's very selfish in a way, but Utah does stuff really well, and I don't want us to be shy, especially where, when we care about the public, we care about professional people, we care about judges learning from from issues to I mean, we all learn, and if that just kind of gets shuffled in any old way, then why would you get on this board? It's just a it's just a crock of nothing. And I don't want it to be it's a really good thing for us. I want it to do it well. And accidents can happen, but I don't want them to happen, not these kind of actions, because it means that we don't live up to all the things

Speaker 2  11:17:11
we stand for. I am concerned that there has been irreparable harm done here, but the best we can do is try to figure out how to instill trust and confidence in the people of Utah and the judiciary and the executive branch and the legislative branch going forward in what we do. Do you have any recommendations, Alex, on what I mean? I know. I think we should all be thinking about this going forward. But do you have any ideas on outside of what we've done thus far, what we can do to build trust?

Speaker 1  11:17:43
Well, we haven't done much outside of what we you know, I think we need to carry this message and share what we've done when the time is appropriate and when we have that messaging to share, whether that's, you know, meeting With the judiciary, meeting with the Legislative, you know legislature, meeting with you know, constituents, whether that's you know, meeting with the Utah State Bar to assure attorneys that you know if they're going to complain about a judge, you know that that's going to be held, You know, in confidence, as per the statute. I mean, as you all know, we get complaints from attorneys, and you know that that affects their livelihood, and so I want to assure them

Speaker 2  11:18:40
do any I mean, I want this to be an open discussion, because I think that it is so important that we figure out how we help rebuild and restore trust in our judicial conduct commission. Does anyone else have any ideas? I'm not saying we have to come up with a solution today, and I'm going to task all you, when we leave this meeting to really think through this issue and come back and we should talk about it again today. Does anyone

Unknown Speaker  11:19:16
have any idea with regard to trust rebuilding?

Speaker 10  11:19:20
Yes. Representative Miller, I mean, I do want to iterate that. I think that, you know, I'm one of the newer members of the JCC, but I've been impressed with, like, the safeguards that already exist. And what would be very disconcerting is that, you know, we knew that someone took, like a physical, you know, like just, just brazenly breached confidentiality, took, took an email, and was a member of commission, Senate meeting. But that's not what happened, something far more, more. I want to use the word clever, but someone used legal mechanisms to get access to our documents in a very complicated way, and so I don't know that we need to beat ourselves over the head too much. I think that we need to adjust to make sure that the way we distribute documents is in impeachably protected, and going analog does that. I mean, the military does the same kind of thing where it's just like, you know, they use IBMs from the 1980s because it can't be remotely accessed. And so that might be able to help remedy that. And I think that an internal investigation to figure out exactly where the breakdown was going to help tremendously, and the more transparent that investigation is, the better. But I also think that the JCC deserves some credit, because we did have a good system, and it wasn't a brazen breach from the inside. And if it was in some way, then it was very, very sophisticated. And so I think that that's where we have to zero in on.

Speaker 2  11:20:49
Any other thoughts? All right, one of the powers this chair is when I get to task you all with things. So I want you to all keep thinking about this, and let's, let's try to see if there's anything else that we can do to help rebuild trust in our JCC process, believing what our commission does, we serve a really valuable public function, and I would like to restore that trust. Okay, now leading into the last the last piece that I, at least I have on my agenda, we all received email that Judge Mortensen submitted to Alex last Friday. This is the email in which judge Mortensen raised a concern that he misinformed judges during his presentation at the annual district judges conference about how judges might respond to a JCC complaint. I know that the members of this commission have received that email because we have other members of the public here, and because I don't want to inadvertently mischaracterize judge Mortensen's email or his request, I'm just going to the relevant portion here. He says, I am concerned, however, with one element of my presentation based on the statutes and regulations applicable to the JCC, as well as my personal experience as a commissioner for eight years, I explained to the judges that complaints, responses to complaints, witness accounts and the deliberations of the JCC were all strictly confidential. Recent stories in the Utah press have proven that I misinformed the judges. It appears that information is subject to disclosure either by a commissioner violating the law through negligence or by a commissioner gaining the grammar system to purposefully disclose this information. Such disclosure undermines legitimacy of the JCC and certainly puts a chilling effect on the system. Judges will now be loath to self report violations. Claimants will worry their cases will be put on public display, and perhaps most importantly, witnesses will be hesitant to cooperate with JCC investigations. Given these circumstances, I think I need to issue a public correction in writing to the entire District Court bench regarding the misinformation I gave them. I apparently wrongly championed the JCC ability to keep matters confidential. To do that, I would like you to ask the current JCC commissioners of what level of confidentiality I can assure judges? That was the request that Judge Mortensen made to us. Now I know that our special committee is going to be investigating some of the things that he has referenced here, and that may be one way of addressing his question, but I am looking to you, Alex, if you have any recommendations on how we can respond to judge Mortensen. And I'm also looking to this commission for how we can respond to judge Mortensen's concern.

Speaker 1  11:24:04
I think right now, our response is we're working on it, and I would like, I think at some point we need to prepare, you know, from the commission a message, not only that responds to judge Mortensen, but but for me, it would be helpful if it was the same message that we referenced all the other constituents, right? What message do you as a commissioner want to send to the Utah State Bar, right? What message do you want me to publish on the JCC website in response to this, right? Or any message that's, I know that kind of doves tail into your homework, but, but I think it would be the prudent and the diligent way to ensure that however we respond to judge Morrison has to be our response to all the constituents.

Speaker 2  11:25:09
Does anyone have any thoughts to the call? I mean, it makes sense that you're proposing Alex, sort of a we're working on it, and we'll get back to you response.

Unknown Speaker  11:25:21
That's all I can do today, right?

Speaker 2  11:25:25
Are we? I mean, this, this inquiry was directed to us as a commission. I'm comfortable with the way that Alex was proposed responding to judge Martinson.

Speaker 6  11:25:39
Well, I think partially we, I don't think, I think we feel that we were victimized, even even through the branches. I think it victimized our legislators. But on the other hand, I think we have to, I mean, we all care enough about we have to figure out how to try to make sure that that availability accidentally accessed from whatever not sure. I think we're still a little stunned. I mean, we're not shocked necessarily, but, I mean, I think we felt we were integrity, and it's kind of hard.

Speaker 10  11:26:26
I you know, this is pretty hard because, you know, the breach hadn't outside of this commission, but, you know, taking accountability that are blind spots we didn't realize is something we get acknowledged, and we took action today to to address that. I mean, that we're, it's not like we're not doing anything where we got the investigation underway, we, I think we've already appointed the investigators. Yes, Oh, were you not here? No, I was, I was, I'll see precise.

Unknown Speaker  11:26:54
There was some procedure

Speaker 10  11:26:58
to put that together. I wasn't there for it. But today that's been assembled, and they'll make findings, and they'll be a transparent process. And on top of that, we're changing the way we distribute these records. I mean, if, if, moving forward, the same kind of thing happens where the legis, you know, the lrgc, has access to it, it means that someone here, outside of the scope of their duties, scanned it in and sent it to someone that shouldn't have and then, and then there's direct culpability that can be tied to each and one of the commissioners, and responsibility that they destroy their documents and otherwise affirm that to the director. And I think that's affirmative action that we can at least say we're working on this, but but demonstrate that on our first meeting back since this happened, have taken steps to try to remedy this. I mean, like, that's, that's the best way to do and so we're going to continue to work on making sure that we are the professional organization everyone knows we are so representative.

Speaker 1  11:27:57
Miller, taking that, changing it into actionable stuff. How would you feel about I mean, I can rough draft, ghost write a letter from the Commission capturing what you've done today, what what has been done, what you've done today, what we hope to do as the response, and then share that with the commissioners, and then you maybe take that initial rough draft, and you all continue to craft that towards at some point, having you all decide as a commission, this is the message that we want to send.

Speaker 10  11:28:42
I'm okay with that. I mean, from here on out, this is transparent. We got media in the room right now. We're we're everything we're doing here is the megaphone, and so I'm happy to do that. And we could get a letter to the judiciary, and we could all put eyes on it. I also trust you as the director to put something together and take action on that the

Speaker 2  11:29:01
rest of the committee commission, if they're comfortable as well with that. I like that proposal. That's something you could put together Alex and bring back to us at our next meeting, and we can take a look at that. I think that that was an excellent suggestion. Representative Miller,

Unknown Speaker  11:29:17
any other commissioners, any thoughts?

Speaker 2  11:29:23
I just I want to thank everyone for coming here today. I appreciate every member of this commission, commission for making the time to be here, including commissioners that were only able to attend remotely. Every single commissioner is here today, which I think is evidence of how important that we view this matter. So thank you guys all for for taking the time to do that. So for our next meeting, what's now looking at the third edit item on our agenda, our next meeting is scheduled for June 2. At that meeting, every one of us is going to see an analog packet in advance, and we'll proceed with doing the JCC business that's scheduled on June 2 at 11 o'clock. I.


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