The Supreme Court has refused to indulge a stay sought by the Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocesan Corporation which would have kept 12,000 pages of court records and depositions in a long-running CT clergy abuse case from public view.

The judgment sought to be stayed, Rosado v. Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocesan Corp., raises some fascinating access issues, including an institutional-reform question which I haven’t seen elsewhere.  Does a judge’s participation on an open access task force mandate recusal by creating an appearance of impropriety in deciding open access questions?

Here, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that the trial judge’s failure to recuse himself in Rosado, despite his involvement with the Judicial Branch’s Public Access Task Force, did not amount to abuse of discretion:

“A trial judge has no affirmative duty to step down from a case merely on the basis of membership on a task force unless the agenda of the task force is inconsistent with the judge’s duty to judge impartially. Case law confirms that service on a commission concerned with improving the legal system and the administration of justice, without more, is not a basis for disqualification, even if the subject matter generally relates to the area of the law at issue in the case at hand.”

Good call, CT. An adverse ruling on this issue would certainly chill bench-led openness efforts. In this case, the precedent appears extensive and clear, but Justice Sullivan’s spirited dissent demonstrates how the “appearance of impropriety” standard can be stretched to embrace reform initiatives.  Several features of the task force’s design were extremely important to the majority ruling, including instructions to consider privacy interests as well as disclosure interests.  Take note, other states seeking to institute openness initiatives, lest you design a task force which might jeopardize judges’ ability to hear access cases.

The next steps, as the New York Times reports, will be unsealing hearings in the Connecticut Superior Court.  We will follow those with interest.