Judge's resignation leaves questions

Date has passed, but status unknown

Judge Robert Somma pleaded no contest to driving while intoxicated. (Courtesy Carpenter & Associates)

First he resigned.

Then he unresigned, or at least tried to.

Now, five days after his resignation was to take effect, it's anybody's guess whether Robert Somma, the US Bankruptcy Court judge who was arrested in February while wearing a dress and was later charged with drunken driving, is still employed by the federal judiciary.

Susan Goldberg - deputy circuit executive of the US Courts for the First Circuit, which is based in Boston - said yesterday that she could not discuss Somma's status. He pleaded no contest in New Hampshire to a charge of driving while intoxicated on Feb. 13 and submitted his resignation two days later.

"I'm just telling you what I can tell you . . . nothing," Goldberg said yesterday.

Karen Redmond - a spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the US Courts in Washington, D.C. - promised to respond to a reporter's query Monday and then failed to return repeated calls. Somma's lawyer, Robert B. Carpenter, sent e-mail yesterday saying he could not comment.

The silence has left lawyers in Boston's tightknit bankruptcy bar wondering whether the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit plans to appoint a successor to Somma or whether an unusual letter-writing campaign by attorneys urging the court to let Somma take back his resignation has succeeded.

Paul D. Moore, a Boston bankruptcy lawyer who helped circulate a letter signed by more than 200 lawyers in support of Somma, said Somma's status was the subject of considerable speculation at an educational conference of bankruptcy attorneys and judges at the Colonnade Hotel last Thursday. Coincidentally, it was the day Somma's resignation was to take effect.

"All I heard was people asking whether anyone had heard anything," Moore said. "It's a small community, but I'm not aware of any news being shared with anyone."

Sanjit S. Korde, a Chelmsford bankruptcy lawyer who has taken no position on Somma's future, said, "I just want to know what's going to happen one way or another."

Somma has been on paid leave from his $158,000-a-year job since around Feb. 15, when he called Gary H. Wente, circuit executive of the US Courts for the First Circuit, from the Caribbean and told him he intended to resign.

Somma, one of five bankruptcy judges in Massachusetts, was taking a previously arranged vacation.

Two days before the phone call, Somma pleaded no contest in Manchester, N.H., to a first-degree misdemeanor charge of driving while intoxicated and agreed to pay $600 in fines and penalties in connection with a car accident there on Feb. 6. He had rear-ended a pickup truck at a traffic light, prompting officers to question him and charge him with drunken driving.

The plea caused a media uproar, not because of the criminal charge but because, as his lawyer later confirmed, he was wearing a woman's dress and appeared to have makeup on.

Nevertheless, many lawyers publicly praised Somma as a jurist, calling him uncommonly fair and thoughtful.

They said his drunken driving reflected a serious lapse of judgment but should not necessitate his departure from the bench. Several also said his attire during his arrest was irrelevant.

His resignation was originally to take effect April 1. But officials at the First Circuit delayed it for six weeks after Somma began expressing second thoughts.

In a letter to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly posted online on April 1, Somma wrote that an outpouring of support from judges, lawyers, and others had led him to conclude, "contrary to my initial belief, that the media frenzy occasioned by this episode would not be an impediment to my continued service as a judge."

Many lawyers in the bankruptcy bar are loath to publicly speculate on the stance of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which appointed Somma to a 14-year renewable term in 2004 and will ultimately decide his fate.

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.