On Monday, September 19, 2022, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary entered an order in the judicial conduct proceeding denying Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tracie Todd’s motion to dismiss.
The case is styled as ‘The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission v. The Hon. Tracie Todd’ with case number #61.
In December 2021, the Court of the Judiciary found Judge Todd violated multiple Canons of Judicial Ethics. She was consequently ordered to work 90 days without pay beginning on December 6, 2021. Judge Todd had previously been suspended from the bench with pay for a period of nine months.
On March 16, 2022, the Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) filed a complaint against Judge Todd for refusing to follow the orders of the Court of the Judiciary after returning to the bench in December 2021. The JIC alleged that she didn’t work as ordered, made misleading or false statements about the work she was reportedly doing, and disrespected and refused to cooperate with fellow judges in the performance of their administrative duties.
In a 2-day hearing on August 15-16, 2022, Todd’s legal team claimed that Judge Todd was in Chicago, where her husband resides. Shortly after she was ordered to return to the courtroom, Todd experienced family sickness and was required to quarantine. She later fell ill and didn’t return to Alabama until mid-February.
In her testimony on September 15, 2022, Judge Todd said she resumed work as ordered on December 6 while staying at her husband’s home, and testified that illnesses that struck her and her household delayed her return to Alabama. Todd said she would have been ready to handle cases sooner if they had been assigned sooner. At the conclusion of her testimony, Judge Todd asked the nine-judge court to dismiss the charges, stating that she did return to work and made no false or misleading statements about it.
The Alabama Court of the Judiciary denied the motion.
The order reads:
“The motion to dismiss made by Judge Tracie Todd in open court on September 16, 2022, is denied. The trial of this matter shall resume with the presentation of closing arguments at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, September 28, 2022.”
The Judge earned a law degree from the University of Alabama School of Law.
A copy of the original filing can be found here.
