The Arizona Supreme Court’s website shows that Justice of the Peace Bruce Staggs has once again been publicly reprimanded by the Commission on Judicial Conduct (CJC), this time for discussing the religious beliefs of some feuding neighbors while presiding over a court hearing.
Staggs serves as the elected JP of Cochise County’s precinct three covering the greater Benson area. He is also the contracted Benson City Magistrate under an arrangement that allows the city to avoid spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each year operating its own municipal court.
CJC records show the reprimand against Staggs stems from four intertwined injunctions against harassment (IJAH) between two sets of neighbors, the Montijos and the Henrys.
In February 2022, the justice of the peace presided over a hearing about whether to leave any of the IJAHs in effect. During that hearing, Staggs remarked that he knew the Montijos had a solid foundation in Christ. He then said he did not know the religious views of the Henrys.
The comments were captured on the courtroom’s audio recording system, according to the CJC.
Just days after the IJAH hearing, a motion to change judge for cause was filed by the attorney representing Mr. Henry on a misdemeanor charge of theft of a volleyball belonging to the Montijos.
That attorney was Wallace Hoggatt, a retired superior court judge who served for several years as Cochise County’s presiding judge. Hoggatt cited several reasons for asking to have Staggs removed from Mr. Henry’s criminal case, including a showing of “impermissible bias” due to the earlier religious comments.
The motion also argued it appeared Staggs improperly relied on his personal knowledge of a party’s religious views when evaluating the injunctions against harassment.
The motion was granted and the criminal case reassigned to another justice of the peace. The case against Mr. Henry was later resolved through a diversion agreement and the theft charge dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.
The CJC complaint was filed by Mr. Henry, who conceded that judges “have the right to their own religious views.” But he argued “it is an error when a trial judge interjects his own views into the proceedings.”
And the CJC agreed, despite Staggs’ contention that his comment was made in the “spur of the moment” during an attempt to improve the contentious relationship between the two households.
Staggs added to the CJC that bringing up the religion topic was “incorrect, unprofessional, and was improper,” albeit “not intentional nor planned.”
“In retrospect, a totally different example should have been used,” he wrote in his response to the complaint.
The CJC Reprimand Order notes Staggs violated six provisions of the Code of Judicial Conduct, including Rule 1.2, which states, “A judge shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.”
Another violation involved Rule 2.10(A), which states, “A judge shall not make any public statement that might reasonably be expected to affect the outcome or impair the fairness of a matter pending or impending in any court, or make any nonpublic statement that might substantially interfere with a fair trial or hearing.”
The public reprimand was signed by the CJC’s vice-chair on May 31 but the documents did not appear on the commission’s website for several weeks.
This is not the first time Staggs has been reprimanded by the CJC since taking office in January 2015. An earlier reprimand imposed in November 2020 stemmed from a series of complaints by some former and then-current court staff. One of those claims alleged Staggs made improper comments about religion, according to the CJC.
The latest reprimand, however, has prompted some Benson residents to suggest city officials cancel the magistrate contract with Staggs and appoint a new magistrate.
In Cochise County, only Huachuca City and Tombstone run their own municipal courts. But both of those courts see a very small volume of cases compared to the other municipalities of Benson, Bisbee, Douglas, Sierra Vista, and Willcox.
As a result, Cochise County has entered into an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) which allows the five larger cities to contract with their local justice of the peace to serve as magistrate for a fee.
The IGA also allows the justice of the peace / magistrate to hear municipal legal matters in the county’s six justice courts, with Cochise County responsible for providing the necessary clerks, interpreters, security, and other ordinary courthouse services.
More information about the prior CJC complaints about Staggs can be found here
Cochise County Justice Of The Peace Reprimanded For Multiple Conduct Violations