How the Nashua Courthouse Broke My Faith in Justice

Judges are supposed to be fair and impartial. In New Hampshire, they should embody independence, not inheritance. My experience in Hillsborough County South has shown otherwise. The lines between mentorship and favoritism have blurred so deeply that I have lost confidence in the system.

When Judge Smith took the bench in Nashua in 2024, she arrived with impeccable endorsements from the very two judges who had long presided over my Right-to-Know cases, with Judge Temple carrying the bulk of them. Those same mentors had repeatedly ruled against what I believe were clear records violations by the City. I never expected a winning record as a pro se litigant against City Hall and its hired-gun attorneys, but I did expect fairness and truth. Instead, persistence was treated as nuisance, and advocacy as disrespect.

Only months into her tenure, in my first case before her, Judge Smith issued an order that revealed clear bias. In a Right-to-Know petition over the City’s payment of outside legal fees, she labeled me “vexatious” and “frivolous,” imposed sanctions and attorney’s fees, and ordered me to strike language addressing gender bias among City attorneys. The City’s motion to dismiss included a boilerplate request for sanctions, but Attorney Leonard never argued for them at the January 31, 2025 hearing. Even so, on March 28 the court issued a sweeping order, echoing almost verbatim an earlier “decorum” directive written by her mentor and judicial sponsor, Judge Temple.

The order hit me like a punch to the gut, sickening, silencing, and final. I believed I had presented well at the hearing, and the judge even complimented both parties for their professionalism. Yet throughout the proceeding, she was distant and unengaged. The order that followed was more than harsh, it was a damning reputational sentence. With one stroke, my years of pressing for transparency were publicly discredited and financially punished. The order was trumpeted by City Hall in the press, while legitimate victories in other cases went unreported. The City’s press release pipeline wins again.

What made the decision so jarring was its contrast to other cases before the same Judge. In some, self-represented litigants were allowed to cure procedural defects; for me, the door was slammed. In others, the court championed “access to justice”; here, it cited “abuse of process.” Unknown to me, the judge carried a prejudice born of her mentor’s (Temple’s) frustration with my prior cases. Equally disturbing, for almost a year, Judge Temple served as the Administrative Judge overseeing civil superior court cases. Did he silently sign off on Smith’s order? His mentorship of Judge Smith produced another pocket judge for the City.

For months, I could not understand why the order was so harsh. Then, in August, I found the answer. I listened to her 2022 Executive Council nomination hearing and discovered her close professional ties to Judges Temple and Colburn. She had served as Judge Temple’s head clerk from 2020–2022 and was mentored by Judge Colburn to take over Nashua’s Drug Court. Both spoke glowingly as her sponsors. Mentorship is not misconduct, but when it carries into the courtroom as selective deference or inherited hostility, it betrays judicial ethics: cases must be decided by law, not loyalty.

The Code of Judicial Conduct is clear. Judges must disclose relationships that might cause their impartiality to “reasonably be questioned,” treat self-represented citizens with fairness, and avoid even the appearance of bias. That did not happen for me. The City gloated over a ruling that destroyed my right to fair access to the court.

Superior Court South is not a guardian of fairness but of familiarity. For five years I fought persistently for open records in Nashua, and I failed because every judge I faced leaned toward the City, permitting misinformation, hyperbole and omissions.. The court’s conduct creates the appearance of political favoritism. Citizens should never have to wonder whether their judge once clerked for, was mentored or sponsored by the person whose ruling she now echoes.

In Nashua, the pattern is unmistakable: three judges, same circle, same outcomes, same message, City Hall wins big. It is time for the judiciary to ask a hard question: are we mentoring fairness or reproducing bias? For Judge Smith to order me to strike gender-bias claims, creating yet another barrier to access, only reinforced her alignment with the City and her mentor.

Until New Hampshire’s judiciary values fairness over familiarity, justice will remain something inherited, not earned. My confidence in justice inside the courtroom is gone.