Philly judge broke state law when she ruled on cases she hadn’t heard then left for Florida, disciplinary court says

A Philadelphia Municipal Court judge violated the state law and judicial canons when she made it appear that she had ruled on 95 traffic citations ahead of a trip to Florida, the state Court of Judicial Discipline has ruled.

Municipal Court Judge Marissa Brumbach violated a provision of the state constitution and the code of judicial conduct when she signed 95 traffic citations, marking some “guilty in absentia” or “withdrawn,” the Judicial Discipline Court said in an opinion filed Tuesday.

While the court acknowledged that judges in traffic court often make rulings without witness testimony or evidence, it found that Brumbach erred in making her rulings a day early, assuming that most defendants wouldn’t show up in court.

“A judge should not sign a disposition for a case before considering all evidence in an actual fair and impartial hearing or trial,” the court said in the opinion.

The state Judicial Conduct Board filed a complaint against Brumbach on Dec. 14, 2022, lodging nine counts of judicial misconduct for her actions.

Brumbach’s attorney, Matt Haverstick, said Wednesday he and his client disagreed with the court’s findings and expect to file objections to the court’s findings. The judge did not respond to an emailed request for comment. The board’s chief counsel, Melissa L. Norton, could not immediately be reached.

Brumbach was relegated to administrative duties on Jan. 10, 2022, and hasn’t returned to the bench since, said Haverstick.

“I think the court also made plain that the judicial conduct board really made out the conduct to be a lot worse than it was,” he said. “I think that latter fact is reflected in the rejection of the bulk of the claims made by the conduct board against Judge Brumbach.”

On Jan. 7, 2022, Brumbach was scheduled to preside over traffic cases in Municipal Court. About two months earlier, she had asked to take that day off to attend an event in Florida, but never was told whether she could take the trip. The day before she was to depart, her supervisor, President Judge Patrick Dugan, denied her request in an email, according to the court’s opinion.

Before she left, Brumbach formulated a plan to review the casess scheduled for Jan. 7.

She asked the prosecutor working in her courtroom to review the files and see which ones could be withdrawn, the court wrote. The prosecutor ended up withdrawing 17 citations.

Then, without any testimony, Brumbach reviewed the remaining citations and marked 40 as “guilty in absentia” and 38 as “not guilty in absentia,” the court found.

Brumbach had planned to call her court staff during the day to docket the cases as if she had been there, the court said. If anyone showed up to request a full hearing, her staff was told to reschedule it for another day.

The day before she left, Brumbach emailed Dugan saying “I have prepared the files for tomorrow” and “if court remains open tomorrow with the impending snow forecast and anyone shows up, my staff and the court staff know what to do,” the court wrote.

Ultimately, Dugan prevented the 95 cases from proceeeding that day. The courthouse ended up being closed because of a snowstorm.