Two New England judges faced conduct findings in the same week. One admitted violating the Code of Judicial Conduct and resigned. The other was found to have created an appearance of impropriety, was publicly reprimanded, and remains on the bench hearing cases. The comparison is not a scandal in either direction. It is a clear look at how two states with similar rules and very different machinery reach very different ends.
On Tuesday, New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald resigned under an agreement in which he admitted violating provisions of the Code of Judicial Conduct, including the duty to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Five days earlier, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court publicly reprimanded District Court Judge Shelley Joseph for conduct in a 2018 case involving a man who left her courthouse through a back door while an immigration officer waited out front. She keeps her job.
This piece sets out what each judge was found to have done, the two disciplinary systems that produced the outcomes, and why the difference has less to do with the rules than with who decided to end the case.
New Hampshire
MacDonald had been on medical leave since July 24, with the court’s four other justices covering his administrative duties. The agreement, posted by New Hampshire’s independent Supreme Court Committee on Judicial Conduct, records his admission that he violated provisions requiring a judge to avoid the appearance of impropriety, that he mishandled the employment of court aide Dianne Martin, and that he failed to exercise his administrative appointment power impartially.
The underlying facts came out of a New Hampshire Public Radio report last year: Martin was laid off from a court position and rehired days later into a different one, a sequence that produced a payout of nearly $50,000. The committee’s investigation began after that report and ended with the resignation agreement, which is dated September 8.
His letter to Governor Kelly Ayotte said the resignation “is in the best interests of the New Hampshire Judicial Branch” and added, “I accept responsibility and accountability for my conduct.” MacDonald, a former New Hampshire attorney general, was the first chief justice in decades to reach the court without prior judicial service. He was sworn in in March 2021, two years after the Executive Council rejected him for the seat.
Massachusetts
Judge Joseph’s case arose from an April 2018 arraignment in Newton District Court. An undocumented defendant left the courthouse through a rear exit while an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer waited in the lobby. She was federally indicted in 2019 for obstruction. Those charges were dismissed in September 2022.
The Commission on Judicial Conduct case continued. A hearing officer, retired federal prosecutor Denis McInerney, issued his report in October 2025. On September 10, 2026, the SJC unanimously issued a public reprimand, finding that she had violated the rule requiring a judge to act in a manner promoting public confidence in the judiciary and had failed to comply with recording requirements. The court did not find that she knew the defendant would leave through the back door. We covered the decision in Judge Shelley Joseph’s public reprimand, explained.
A public reprimand is published and permanent, and it carries nothing else. She continues to hear cases.
The two systems
Both states use a version of the same model: an independent body investigates complaints, holds hearings, and recommends to the state’s highest court, which imposes discipline.
In Massachusetts, the Commission on Judicial Conduct investigates and the Supreme Judicial Court decides. Under G.L. c. 211C, § 8(4), the commission may recommend and the SJC may impose removal, retirement, discipline as an attorney, limits or conditions on judicial duties, public or private reprimand or censure, a fine, costs, or any other lawful sanction. Removal is first on that list.
That is the point worth sitting with. The SJC had the authority to remove Judge Joseph and chose a public reprimand instead. The reprimand was not the ceiling of the court’s power. It was the court’s judgment about what this conduct warranted.
Massachusetts also retains two older routes that belong to the political branches rather than the courts. A judge may be removed by a bill of address, in which both houses of the Legislature address the Governor, who may remove the judge with the consent of the Governor’s Council, or by impeachment. Massachusetts judges otherwise serve to age 70 under a 1972 constitutional amendment.
New Hampshire’s Supreme Court Committee on Judicial Conduct investigates and recommends to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, which can suspend or remove. In practice, the outcome that matters here was not imposed by anyone. It was agreed to. MacDonald signed a resolution that ended the investigation in exchange for his resignation and his admissions.
That is the structural difference. The Massachusetts process ran to a contested conclusion over eight years and ended with a court weighing the full range of sanctions and choosing one that left the judge in place. The New Hampshire process ended in a negotiated agreement, which removed the judge without any court having to order anything.
Why the outcomes differ
Four reasons, and none of them is that one state takes judicial misconduct more seriously.
The admissions. MacDonald admitted violations. Joseph contested her case through a full hearing before a hearing officer and then before the SJC. A contested case that ends in a finding of appearance of impropriety is a different posture from an agreed statement of violations.
The conduct. The New Hampshire findings concern a chief justice’s use of his own administrative and appointment powers over court employment, which goes to the internal integrity of the branch he ran. The Massachusetts finding concerns how one arraignment was handled and how it was recorded. Both are serious. They are not the same kind of serious, and the second does not implicate the administration of an entire judicial branch.
The office. A chief justice runs the judiciary. A district court judge does not. A finding that a chief justice exercised appointment power partially reaches every appointment he made.
The leverage. A judge who resigns ends an investigation before anyone has to decide what she deserves. A judge who contests her case leaves that decision to the court, and the court has to justify whatever it picks.
What it means for anyone with a complaint
Massachusetts residents can file a complaint against a judge with the Commission on Judicial Conduct. The process is confidential unless and until formal charges issue, complaints about how a case was decided are not within the commission’s jurisdiction, and the remedy for a wrong ruling is an appeal, not a complaint. The commission cannot change a decision, order a new trial or award anything to a complainant.
What both of these cases show is how long the process takes when it is contested. Joseph’s conduct occurred in April 2018 and was resolved in September 2026. The New Hampshire investigation opened last year and closed this month, and it closed early only because the judge agreed to end it.
Common questions
Why did the New Hampshire chief justice resign?
Gordon MacDonald signed an agreement with the Supreme Court Committee on Judicial Conduct admitting violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct, including failing to avoid the appearance of impropriety and failing to exercise his administrative appointment power impartially, in connection with a court aide’s layoff and rehiring. The resignation ended the investigation.
Why was Judge Joseph only reprimanded?
Because the Supreme Judicial Court chose that sanction. Under G.L. c. 211C, § 8(4) the court could have imposed removal, retirement, conditions on her duties, a fine or censure. A public reprimand was a judgment about the conduct, not the limit of the court’s power.
Can a Massachusetts judge be removed?
Yes, three ways: by the SJC as a sanction under G.L. c. 211C, by a bill of address in which the Legislature addresses the Governor, who acts with the consent of the Governor’s Council, or by impeachment. Judges otherwise serve to age 70.
How do I file a complaint about a Massachusetts judge?
Through the Commission on Judicial Conduct. The process is confidential until formal charges issue, and the commission has no jurisdiction over the merits of a ruling. Disagreement with a decision is an appeal issue.
Is Judge Joseph still hearing cases?
Yes. A public reprimand carries no suspension.
New Hampshire facts, the resignation agreement’s contents and the MacDonald quotations as reported by NBC10 Boston and WCVB, September 15 and 16, 2026, drawing on the Supreme Court Committee on Judicial Conduct’s posted agreement and New Hampshire Public Radio’s earlier reporting; the agreement itself was not retrieved. Massachusetts facts from the SJC’s September 10, 2026 decision as covered in our September 11 report. G.L. c. 211C, § 8 read at malegislature.gov. General information, not legal advice.