Opinion 88-84

October 7, 1988

Dear Justice

                   This is in response to your letter of June 23, 1988, in which you inquire whether you may hear traffic cases involving failure to stop a vehicle during the loading or unloading of a school bus operated by an employee of the Broad of Education, of which you are a member.

                   Section 100.2 of the Rules of the Chief Administrator mandates that judges avoid the appearance of impropriety. Your presiding over a case where a witness for the prosecution is a bus driver employed by the Board of Education, of which you are a member, and where school children aboard a bus operated by the Board of Education are endangered by the defendant’s actions, creates an appearance of impropriety. Accordingly, you should disqualify yourself from such cases.

                   This opinion is advisory only and does not bind either the Office of Court Administration or the Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Very truly yours,

Samuel J. Silverman

Chair