California's Commission on Judicial Performance issued an order Tuesday imposing public censure on retired Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Bruce Clayton Mills and barring him from state judicial work in California.

Due to three recent instances of misconduct, the commission is endeavoring to prevent Mills, who retired in May of this year, “from seeking or holding judicial office, or accepting assignments, appointments, or references of work from any California state court.”

Mills' public censure and bar is the “most severe level of discipline that the commission may impose on a retired judge,” the commission said in a statement. The agency has previously disciplined Mills five times, a factor in the latest decision.

His most recent and most severe discipline stemmed from three acts of what the commission called “willful misconduct” in 2016.

In Evilsizor v. Sweeney, according to the commission, Mills sentenced the defendant to 25 days in jail. But the commission said after a sheriff inquired about whether good time credits were included in the sentence, Mills modified the sentence to exclude these credits, without notifying the parties.

The commission called the move “a deprivation of liberty based on an ex parte communication.”

Janet Everson, a civil litigation attorney at Murphy Pearson Bradley & Feeney who represented Mills, said the judge did not change the order ex parte. Rather, she said, both sides had been arguing in court about whether or not good time credits applied, and Mills wrote in his court order that good time credits did not apply.

“The commission has been looking for a way for a decade to reprimand Judge Mills publicly, and now that he's off the bench this is their way to do it,” Everson said. “But a read of the [Evilsizor v. Sweeney] transcript clearly indicates their ruling is wrong.”

According to the commission, Mills then issued another sentencing order in the same case, granting the defendant good time credits because of the defendant's litigation history and complaints to the commission.

“Deciding an issue for reasons unconnected to the merits displays no compliance with the law, undermines the integrity and independence of the judiciary, and deprives litigants the opportunity to have their matters adjudicated in accordance with the law,” the commission said in its censure.

The third instance of misconduct cited by the commission was what it deemed to be an ex parte communication Mills held with a deputy district attorney in a driving under the influence trial, People v. Jeffers. Mills, according to the commission, gave the DDA unsolicited advice on the case, providing a theory he believed would defeat the defense's.

The commission said that the seriousness of the misconduct and Mills' history of discipline led to his censure and bar, which it said was necessary “in order to protect the public and maintain public confidence in the integrity and independence of the judicial system.”

Everson disagrees. “The commission got this wrong,” she said. “The decision is shocking.”

Mills had been a longtime judge at the Contra Costa Country Superior Court—serving from 1998 to May of this year. Previously he served on the county's municipal court from 1995 to 1998. His disciplinary record, according to commission's decision, dates back to 2001.

Read the CJP's order here:

Read the CJP's full statement here: