Despite coming under scrutiny in the past year because of Hancock County’s suspended probate judge, a bill to reform how probate judge positions are filled and overseen was rejected Thursday by the state Senate.
With the rejection of the proposed legislation, probate judges in Maine will continue to be part-time elected county officials with relatively little oversight.
The issue has drawn heightened interest in Hancock County, where the elected probate judge, William B. Blaisdell IV has been suspended — but only after being found in contempt of court for not paying court-ordered child support in his divorce.
And earlier this month, to make things worse, an arrest warrant was issued for Blaisdell after he failed to turn up at a hearing in Waldo County, where his divorce is being handled because of his courthouse connections in Hancock County. He later turned himself into Hancock County jail on March 17 and was released after posting a $16,929 bail — the amount of child support he owed.
Despite all this, though he remains under suspension, Blaisdell has not been removed from office and still is listed as Hancock County’s probate judge on the county’s website.
Mark Brewer, chair of the University of Maine’s political science department, said the Blaisdell case has revealed a “weak spot” in how the state selects its part-time probate judges, positions that are sometimes filled in low-profile elections that attract little public scrutiny.
Legal problems a probate judge might encounter are only part of the picture. Concerns also have been raised around how part-time probate judges, unlike any other state judges, can continue to work as private lawyers and as such are exempt from some parts of the state’s judicial code of conduct.
“One of the reasons I voted for the bill was because it would give the judiciary more power to police those types of situations,” state Democratic state Sen. Joe Baldacci of Bangor said, referring to Blaisdell. “Right now, the judiciary does not have power to police the probate court judges like that.”
Baldacci said the bill would “professionalize and standardize” Maine’s current probate system, which is now independent of the state’s judicial branch.
The bill narrowly failed in the state Senate on March 24, only to pass the House the following day. But after failing a second Senate vote Thursday afternoon, the bill is effectively dead, Baldacci said.
Maine’s judicial branch, which oversees and operates the state court system, is not permitted to remove elected judges from office, however they can recommend their dismissal to the Legislature.
Under the Maine Constitution, a sitting probate judge can be removed through two legislative actions: impeachment or a formal address to the governor, neither of which has ever been used to remove a probate judge.
That historic lack of disciplinary action raises “concerns with the legislative oversight mechanisms that are in place,” said Brewer. “Maybe not necessarily the mechanism, but the Legislature’s either ability to or willingness to use it.”
The state’s judicial conduct committee previously urged the Supreme Court to recommend the Legislature remove Blaisdell. The court declined, and opted instead for suspension.
Blaisdell’s term will expire at the end of this year.
Matthew Foster, a former Maine district attorney whose ethics also came under criticism after he lied during a 2022 candidates’ forum about whether he had ever been investigated by the state attorney general’s office, is running for his seat. Foster went on to lose his re-election bid.
No other candidate filed to run for probate judge in the June political party primaries, though an independent candidate could still contest the seat in November’s general election.
