By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
Survivors of the Sununu Youth Services Center, formerly called YDC, sex abuse scandal are demanding to know if the judge who recently ruled against them is trying to get a new job on the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
Several YDC survivors are suing the state and Gov. Kelly Ayotte over recent changes to the YDC Settlement Fund they claim violate their rights to seek justice. After Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Daniel St. Hilaire ruled against them on Sept. 19, the victims want to know if St. Hilaire can be trusted.
“The concerns of bias expressed by our clients are substantive and must be addressed under the Rules of Judicial Conduct,” attorneys David Vicinanzo and Rus Rilee wrote in the motion for judicial disclosure.
The lawyers filed the motion Wednesday on behalf of the YDC survivors demanding that St. Hilaire disclose whether or not he is seeking Ayotte’s nomination for a promotion to the highest court in the state.
“[W]e are concerned that if Justice St. Hilaire has harbored an interest in promotion to the Supreme Court–a position of higher status, power, and pay–and had taken any steps toward that end, whether directly or through an intermediary, or intends to do so, his perception of us and our case could have been influenced, consciously or subconsciously, by his personal desire for promotion. That promotion would depend on the favor of the named defendant, Governor Ayotte, who certainly would not be happy if the Judge found that she acted unlawfully in influencing the legislature to breach the State’s promises to the victims of abuse at the YDC,” the survivors state in the motion.
The lawsuit before St. Hilaire alleges the State, and in particular Ayotte, broke its promise to several hundred survivors who opted to stay their civil lawsuits and go through the Settlement Fund process. Ayotte pushed through changes to the Settlement Fund law that stripped the fund administrator’s independence, and allows Attorney General John Formella to veto any settlement offer.
Many survivors say they thought they would get a fair hearing from the administrator, and then a final offer to settle their claims of abuse, because of the way the fund was constituted under the law.
Retired New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick, the former YDC Settlement Fund Administrator, testified during an August hearing that Ayotte actively worked behind the scenes to make the changes. Under the new amendments that took effect on July 1, the fund administrator answers to Ayotte and Formella.
Ayotte’s Judicial Selection Commission was working on finding replacements for Associate Justice James Bassett, who retired this year, and Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi, who is set to retire next year, when the current lawsuit was filed.
Ayotte is refusing to disclose the names of any lower court judges who applied for openings on the Supreme Court. In fact, her May executive order setting up the commission makes nearly all committee records non-public, contrary to New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know law RSA 91 A. Her office did not respond to InDepthNH.org on Wednesday.
Ayotte’s office denied InDepthNH.org’s recent Right-to-Know request seeking the names of judges who applied for a Supreme Court job on Sept. 16, citing the May executive order. But the denial set off alarm bells for the survivors when St. Hilaire ruled against them three days later.
“The RSA 91-A request referenced above received publicity, and the secretive response of the Governor’s office served to fuel even more speculation among the class of YDC victims. In essence, the concern comes down to whether the honorable Court harbors or harbored a wish to fill the Supreme Court seats of Justice Bassett (September 2025) or Justice Hantz Marconi (February 2026) and has taken any steps to be considered, including by application or by communicating directly or indirectly with the Governor, her office, or the Executive Council or other intermediary means,” Rilee and Vicinanzo wrote.
If Ayotte won’t say who has applied for the Supreme Court, St. Hilaire must disclose if he’s a candidate, the lawyers argue.
“It is precisely because the attorneys and clients are in the dark, in a rare situation in which the Governor is a named defendant and an interested party in current litigation, that the request for disclosure under N.H. Sup. Ct. Rule 38 must be made and, respectfully, should be answered transparently by the Court to ‘promote public confidence in the independence, integrity and impartiality of the judiciary,’” the lawyers wrote.