Independent New Hampshire Journalism · Northfield, NHCorrection, Sept. 22, 2026, 9:00 p.m. EDT: The image that ran at the top of this article was an illustration of a judge at a desk with a nameplate. It was not a photograph of Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald, and it carried no label saying so, so a reader could reasonably have taken it for one. The image has been removed. A new image was added on Sept. 29, 2026. No other part of this article has been changed.
He admitted three ethics violations tied to a $49,856.83 layoff payout for a longtime aide, and the records released with his letter show the Supreme Court’s own public account did not hold up.
Gordon J. MacDonald’s resignation letter runs five sentences, and the day in its date line is written in by hand. Addressed to Gov. Kelly Ayotte and dated Sept. 15, 2026, it gives up both of his posts, chief justice and justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, and it says, “I accept responsibility and accountability for my conduct.”
The letter points to a Stipulation and Agreement he reached with the state’s Judicial Conduct Committee, dated Sept. 8, 2026. The file behind that deal became public the same day as the letter, under a Supreme Court order: the committee’s report and complaint, MacDonald’s written answer, the agreement and the order approving it. It runs past 700 pages.
Read that file and the resignation looks like a partial reckoning. MacDonald admitted three violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct tied to a $49,856.83 payout for a longtime aide. The committee found that the Supreme Court’s public explanation of the payout, issued in the names of four justices, gave an inaccurate account of how she was removed and rehired. And the deal that ended the case swapped a public hearing for a guaranteed exit, a trade the committee concedes left the public with less than a full airing.
Full text of the letter, as released
September 15, 2026 [day handwritten]
The Honorable Kelly A. Ayotte
State of New Hampshire
Office of the Governor
107 N Main Street, #208
Concord, NH 03301
Dear Governor Ayotte:
I hereby voluntarily resign as Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court and as Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court. I believe this is in the best interests of the New Hampshire Judicial Branch. I accept responsibility and accountability for my conduct. It has been an honor to serve the people of New Hampshire. This resignation is consistent with the terms of the Stipulation and Agreement with the Judicial Conduct Committee dated September 8, 2026, [sic]
Sincerely,
[signature]
Hon. Gordon J. MacDonald
cc: Robert T. Mittelholzer, Ex. Sec., JCC
- Stipulation and Agreement, JC-25-079-C
- Committee summary report with Exhibits A through O, including the complaint and the justices’ Oct. 31, 2025 statement
- MacDonald’s answer, Exhibit P, 583 pages with court-directed redactions
- Executed agreement, Exhibit Q
- Supreme Court final order, JD-2026-0004
- Resignation letter
What he admitted, and who approved the deal
The admissions are brief and specific. Under Rule 1.2, MacDonald admitted he did not act in a way that builds public trust in the court’s impartiality and did not avoid the appearance of impropriety. Under Rule 2.5(A), he admitted he did not handle his administrative duties competently and diligently in how Dianne Martin’s removal and reappointment were characterized, processed and explained to the public, including by skipping the branch’s own rules and handing her a job without the competitive, merit-based hiring other court employees go through. Under Rule 2.13(A), he admitted he failed to make an administrative appointment impartially and on merit, and failed to avoid favoritism.
Under Supreme Court Rule 40, findings like these normally go to the Supreme Court for briefing and an oral argument open to the public. That did not happen. The Sept. 15, 2026 order came from a specially assigned panel: retired Superior Court Chief Justice Nadeau and Superior Court Justices Attorri, Honigberg, MacLeod and Kennedy. The panel found a hearing unnecessary because MacDonald acknowledged the violations and neither side asked for one. It held that the committee’s findings were supported by the record, approved the agreement and ruled that, with MacDonald resigned, “no additional disciplinary action is available.”
MacDonald must repay the Administrative Office of the Courts for the committee’s attorney’s fees and expenses by Dec. 31, 2026. In the agreement, he also promised not to seek money from the Judicial Branch’s Default Fund to pay his own lawyers. Neither the order nor the agreement puts a dollar figure on the committee’s costs.
The payout, by the numbers
Martin’s ties to MacDonald run back to the attorney general’s office. By his own account to the committee, he met her there in 2017 and recommended her for promotion, eventually to associate attorney general and chief of staff. She went on to chair the Public Utilities Commission and became director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, the AOC, on Nov. 15, 2021.
On Feb. 28, 2025, Justices Patrick Donovan and Melissa Countway told Martin she was out as director. The attorney general’s office later found that she was told her position had been eliminated effective immediately, with none of the advance notice the branch’s personnel rules require, and that she stayed on paid administrative leave until her formal layoff on April 1, 2025. Three days later, on April 4, the branch hired her as general counsel to the Office of Bar Admissions. A whistleblower cited in the committee’s complaint described the layoff-and-rehire as “the Chief’s idea.”
The layoff is what produced the money. Under the branch’s personnel rules, a laid-off employee is paid for unused annual leave and half of accumulated sick leave, each up to a cap, plus terminal pay. Martin received $49,856.83. The committee’s complaint said a direct transfer would have carried her leave into the new job under Personnel Rule 55, with no payout owed.
The Department of Administrative Services processed the payment, but it worked only from numbers the courts supplied. The attorney general’s review found that DAS relied entirely on leave balances the Judicial Branch reported, that the branch alone kept Martin’s leave records, and that her leave entries were approved by her supervisor, Chief Justice MacDonald. That review closed on Nov. 25, 2025, finding no reasonable suspicion that more investigation would turn up a prosecutable crime. It said the facts could reasonably support a finding that “human resources best practices were not followed” in some respects, and noted that the attorney general has no oversight of the courts on such issues.
The statement that did not hold
NHPR reported the layoff and rehire on Oct. 23, 2025, along with a whistleblower’s account of how it happened. Eight days later the court answered with a statement headed with four names: MacDonald, Donovan, Countway and Justice Bryan Gould. “Every personnel decision regarding Ms. Martin was made collectively by the Supreme Court,” it said. It described a cost-cutting review of court administration under way since early 2024, said the court eliminated Martin’s old job as part of that reorganization, and said she received her accrued leave and benefits under standard policies, after review by the Department of Administrative Services.
That statement is part of why the committee opened a case. Citing concern about its accuracy, the committee voted on Nov. 14, 2025, to start an inquiry of its own and to hold off notifying any justice. Its findings say the statement did not accurately describe the process and left the impression that a routine reorganization explained Martin’s removal and rehire, when the evidence showed long-running, serious concerns about how she ran the AOC.
The committee’s complaint laid out the calendar problem. MacDonald’s order for a review of the court system’s administrative structure came on April 11, 2025, after Martin had been removed and after she had been laid off. The National Center for State Courts delivered its assessment around July 1, 2025. And the job Martin supposedly lost to a reorganization was not abolished until Oct. 14, 2025, when the court created a state court administrator post and gave it to Judge Christopher Keating, who had run the AOC on an interim basis since her removal.
Who wrote the statement matters too. In his June 16, 2026 answer, MacDonald told the committee that a communications consultant retained by the branch drafted it, and that the final version was reviewed and approved on a call with Donovan, Countway, Gould, Keating, the consultant and Richard Lehmann, a lawyer the court had retained for the attorney general’s review. Gould joined the court on Sept. 18, 2025, more than five months after the decisions the statement vouched for. The committee’s findings concern one justice and do not say whether the others named on the statement share responsibility for it. Donovan, Countway and Gould remained on the court after MacDonald left.
How the justices met the inquiry
The committee’s report shows the court’s leaders pushed back. Countway, citing the confidentiality of personnel information, would not answer questions about the decisions involving Martin until the committee issued a protective order. Lehmann then told the committee’s lawyer that he represented MacDonald, Donovan, Countway and Gould, and asked the committee to bar its members, its lawyers and anyone acting for it from saying anything, public or private, that could reveal the inquiry existed. The committee denied the injunction and said it would seek permission to make a public statement. The justices asked it to reconsider and to disqualify its lawyer, Philip Waystack. It refused both.
Waystack kept going, questioning Donovan, Countway, retired Justice James Bassett, the top judges of the Superior and Circuit courts, a retired judge and current and former AOC staff, some of them under oath, with a second lawyer, Andrew Cotrupi, brought in to help. The committee’s March 30, 2026 vote to file a formal complaint was unanimous. MacDonald answered on June 16 and asked to appear in person, then chose not to. His lawyers instead sought a substitute Supreme Court panel, a stay and the disqualification of every judge on the committee. Each judge found no conflict, and the committee’s other members denied the stay.
His account before the deal
His June answer reads differently from his September admissions. He wrote that the full court approved laying Martin off and rehiring her, on the advice of the branch’s then-general counsel, “in order to mitigate risks to the Judicial Branch” and to comply with its layoff rule. He credited Martin with building a grants office and improving courthouse security. Asked whether he knew of complaints about her work from judges and staff, he answered yes; asked who had reviewed her performance as director, he said he had no memory of who, if anyone, did. He disputed that she got a raise, saying she moved from labor grade 60 to grade 58 at the same step, and said the months-long overlap with her predecessor broke no personnel rule. He also said he knew of no complaint filed under the state’s whistleblower law.
The complaint accused him of losing his temper, too. It alleged that on March 3, 2025, the first business day after Martin’s removal, he confronted Donovan and Countway in their offices, yelling and swearing, and that it was not the first time. MacDonald wrote that he remembered raising his voice with Donovan, did not remember slamming a door or swearing, and did not dispute that he could have. He said he did not remember any exchange with Countway that morning, and quoted an email in which Countway told his lawyer there had been no heated exchange between them. The decorum rule, 2.8, is not among the three violations he admitted, and neither are two other provisions the complaint cited, Rules 1.1 and 2.13(B).
Why a deal, and what the public gave up
The committee’s explanation for settling reads as a verdict on the system as much as on the man. It wrote that a New Hampshire judge can be removed only by impeachment or by address, in which both houses of the Legislature ask the governor and council to act. The harshest penalty the Supreme Court can impose on its own, the committee said, is suspension without pay, and it is unclear whether the court can suspend a judge indefinitely. Findings on every charge after a public hearing still could not have ended MacDonald’s commission, and the Legislature might have taken months to act, if it acted at all.
So the committee took the certain exit. It wrote that letting MacDonald keep his commission, even while suspended, would cut against the constitutional right to judges “as impartial as the lot of humanity will admit,” and that making sure he no longer held a position of public trust was its paramount concern. It was candid about the cost.
That trade deserves a plain accounting. New Hampshire got a chief justice’s admission and his exit ten months after the committee opened its file. It did not get sworn public testimony, a record tested by cross-examination, or findings on every provision charged. The complaint cited six provisions of the code; the agreement settles on three. An agreed record is not a proven one, and the questions a public hearing would have pressed, starting with how three other justices came to put their names on a statement the committee found inaccurate, will not be tested in one.
The gap matters more in the courts than anywhere else in state government, because New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know Law does not reach the judicial branch. Public access to court records rests on Part I, Articles 8 and 22 of the state constitution and on the courts’ own procedures, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the state law library. Lawmakers had an opening of their own: HR 38, a House resolution directing the Judiciary Committee to look into possible maladministration at the Supreme Court, drew a hearing on Feb. 11, 2026, and was later tabled, according to InDepthNH and NHPR. GSR’s explainer on removing a judge lays out why that route almost never gets used.
What happens next
MacDonald’s resignation opened the chief justice’s seat, and filling it runs through the same two offices as every judgeship: the governor nominates, and no appointment takes place unless a majority of the Executive Council agrees. Ayotte had already named two of the five justices, Gould and Justice Daniel Will, who was sworn in on March 4, 2026, according to the Boston Globe and the Judicial Branch. NHPR reported that it was unclear when she would name MacDonald’s successor.
Until then, Donovan carries the chief’s load. As the senior associate justice, he has filled the chief’s responsibilities since MacDonald’s medical leave began on July 31, 2026, and the court has said he acts in the chief justice’s place where a statute allows. The court’s fall oral arguments were set to resume Sept. 22, 2026.
Three other threads carry forward. MacDonald’s payment for the committee’s costs is due by Dec. 31, 2026. The bench for Rand, the school-funding appeal, is different without him; the plaintiffs had renewed their request on Aug. 31, 2026, that he step aside from that case. And a separate misconduct case against retired Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi is set for a public hearing before the committee in December 2026.
The account still owed
MacDonald’s letter accepts responsibility. The court’s Oct. 31, 2025 statement did not, and the committee’s findings leave open whether the three justices whose names are on it with his owe the public a correction. The Executive Council gets the next chance to ask. Whoever Ayotte nominates should answer, on the record, how the branch will hire, remove and pay its top administrators, and whether the court will correct the account it gave New Hampshire in its own name.
His letter took five sentences. The record behind it runs past 700 pages. Read the long version.
— Dexter Dow, Granite State Report
Your Turn
You tell me: Did you work in the courts, the AOC or the Office of Bar Admissions during these years? Tell me what the record leaves out. granitestatereport@gmail.com
Fact check
| # | Claim | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MacDonald resigned as chief justice and as a justice by letter to Gov. Ayotte dated Sept. 15, 2026 (day handwritten), citing a Sept. 8, 2026 Stipulation and Agreement; copied to JCC Executive Secretary Robert T. Mittelholzer. | VERIFIED | Resignation letter as released Sept. 15, 2026 (Office of the Governor; N.H. Judicial Branch) |
| 2 | He admitted violating Rules 1.2, 2.5(A) and 2.13(A) of the Code of Judicial Conduct, as worded above. | VERIFIED | Stipulation and Agreement, ¶3; Final Order, JD-2026-0004; JCC summary report |
| 3 | The complaint cited Rules 1.1, 1.2, 2.5(A), 2.8 and 2.13(A) and (B); only 1.2, 2.5(A) and 2.13(A) were admitted and found. | VERIFIED | JCC complaint (Exhibit O); Stipulation ¶3; Final Order |
| 4 | Resignation effective on court approval; public hearing and de novo hearing waived; no Default Fund payment for his personal counsel; committee costs to be repaid. | VERIFIED | Stipulation ¶¶2, 4, 5, 6, 8 |
| 5 | The Sept. 15, 2026 order came from Nadeau, J. (retired Superior Court chief justice) and Superior Court Justices Attorri, Honigberg, MacLeod and Kennedy, specially assigned; it found a hearing unnecessary, found the committee’s findings supported, approved the agreement, stated “no additional disciplinary action is available,” set a Dec. 31, 2026 payment deadline and released Exhibit P with added non-substantive redactions. | VERIFIED | Final Order, JD-2026-0004, quoting Supreme Court Rule 40(13) |
| 6 | Neither the order nor the agreement states the amount of the committee’s costs. | VERIFIED | Final Order; Stipulation (full texts reviewed) |
| 7 | MacDonald met Martin at the attorney general’s office in 2017 and recommended her promotions, including to associate attorney general and chief of staff; she later chaired the PUC and became AOC director effective Nov. 15, 2021. | VERIFIED | MacDonald’s answer, Exhibit P (Q1); N.H. DOJ release, Nov. 25, 2025 |
| 8 | Donovan and Countway removed Martin on Feb. 28, 2025; she was told her position was eliminated effective immediately, without the advance notice the rules require; she was on paid administrative leave until her April 1, 2025 layoff and was hired as Office of Bar Admissions general counsel effective April 4, 2025. | VERIFIED | N.H. DOJ release (Exhibit C); JCC complaint; MacDonald’s answer |
| 9 | The payout was $49,856.83: $27,386.70 for 330 hours of annual leave, $16,162.30 for 194.75 hours of sick time and $6,307.83 in terminal pay. The components sum to the total. | VERIFIED | N.H. DOJ release, Nov. 25, 2025 |
| 10 | Laid-off employees are paid unused annual leave (up to 50 days), half of accumulated sick leave (up to 60 days) and terminal pay. | VERIFIED | N.H. DOJ release describing Judicial Branch personnel rules |
| 11 | DAS relied entirely on leave balances the branch reported; the branch was the exclusive record keeper; MacDonald approved Martin’s leave entries as her supervisor; DOJ found no reasonable suspicion that further investigation would uncover actionable criminal conduct, said it would be reasonable to conclude best practices were not followed in certain respects, and cited its lack of oversight authority over the judicial branch. | VERIFIED | N.H. DOJ release, Nov. 25, 2025 |
| 12 | A direct transfer would have carried Martin’s leave over under Personnel Rule 55; a whistleblower described the layoff-and-rehire as “the Chief’s idea.” | ATTRIBUTED | JCC complaint (allegations). MacDonald’s answer says he knew of no complaint under RSA 275-E |
| 13 | NHPR reported the layoff and rehire on Oct. 23, 2025. | VERIFIED | JCC summary report; N.H. DOJ release; NHPR |
| 14 | The Oct. 31, 2025 statement is headed “Statement of Supreme Court Justices MacDonald, Donovan, Countway and Gould” and contains the quoted sentence, the early-2024 review language and the DAS review language. | VERIFIED | Statement, Exhibit B to the JCC report. The DOJ release refers to it as released Oct. 30, 2025 |
| 15 | The committee voted Nov. 14, 2025, to open an inquiry, citing accuracy concerns, and to delay notifying the justices; it found the statement did not accurately portray the process and cited long-standing, serious concerns about Martin’s management. | VERIFIED | JCC summary report |
| 16 | The administrative review order is dated April 11, 2025; the NCSC assessment came about July 1, 2025; the AOC director post was eliminated Oct. 14, 2025, when Keating, interim director since Martin’s removal, became State Court Administrator. | ATTRIBUTED | JCC complaint, citing the N.H. Judicial Branch Assessment and the Supreme Court Rule 54 change |
| 17 | A communications consultant retained by the branch drafted the statement; the final version was approved on a call with Donovan, Countway, Gould, Keating, the consultant and attorney Richard Lehmann. | ATTRIBUTED | MacDonald’s answer, Exhibit P (Q23) |
| 18 | Gould was sworn in Sept. 18, 2025, as an Ayotte nominee; Will was sworn in March 4, 2026. | VERIFIED | N.H. Judicial Branch, Supreme Court Justices page |
| 19 | Countway sought a protective order before answering; Lehmann represented four justices and sought to bar disclosure of the inquiry; the injunction, reconsideration and disqualification requests were denied; the listed witnesses were examined; Cotrupi was hired; the March 30, 2026 complaint vote was unanimous; the answer came June 16, 2026; MacDonald’s motions and their outcome are as described. | VERIFIED | JCC summary report and exhibit index |
| 20 | MacDonald’s account: the court approved the arrangement on counsel’s advice “in order to mitigate risks to the Judicial Branch” and under Rule 56; grants and security work; aware of complaints; no memory of a performance review; grade 60 to grade 58 at step 9; overlap within Rule 26; no known whistleblower complaint. | ATTRIBUTED | MacDonald’s answer, Exhibit P (Q2, Q3, Q11, Q17, Q18, Q19) |
| 21 | The March 3, 2025 decorum allegation, his response and Countway’s email to his counsel. | ATTRIBUTED | JCC complaint; MacDonald’s answer (Q20, Q21) |
| 22 | Committee reasoning: removal only by impeachment or address; suspension without pay as the court’s harshest sanction; uncertain power to suspend indefinitely; a hearing could not end his commission; possible legislative delay; the quoted transparency concession. | VERIFIED | JCC summary report, citing N.H. Const. pt. II, arts. 17, 38, 73; Opinion of the Justices, 140 N.H. 297; In re Coffey’s Case, 157 N.H. 156 |
| 23 | Part II, Art. 46 (council majority required); Art. 73 (good behavior; removal on address); Art. 73-a (chief justice as administrative head); Part I, Art. 35 (“as impartial as the lot of humanity will admit”), which the committee’s report labels Article 38. | VERIFIED | N.H. Constitution (Justia text; Secretary of State text for Art. 46) |
| 24 | RSA 91-A does not reach the courts; access to court records rests on Part I, Arts. 8 and 22 and court procedures. | ATTRIBUTED | Reporters Committee, Open Government Guide: New Hampshire; N.H. Law Library, citing the Attorney General’s RSA 91-A memorandum |
| 25 | HR 38 drew a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Feb. 11, 2026, and was later tabled. | ATTRIBUTED | InDepthNH op-ed, March 5, 2026; NHPR, Sept. 15, 2026 |
| 26 | Ayotte nominated two of the five justices; it was unclear when she would nominate a successor. | ATTRIBUTED | Boston Globe and NHPR, Sept. 15, 2026 |
| 27 | Donovan has filled the chief’s role since the July 31, 2026 leave and acts in the chief’s stead “where authorized by statute”; arguments were set to resume Sept. 22, 2026. | ATTRIBUTED | NHPR, Sept. 15, 2026; court release as reported by InDepthNH, Aug. 6, 2026 |
| 28 | The Rand plaintiffs renewed their recusal request as to MacDonald on Aug. 31, 2026. | ATTRIBUTED | InDepthNH, Aug. 31, 2026, as reported by GSR, Sept. 15, 2026 |
| 29 | Hantz Marconi’s separate committee case is set for a public hearing in December 2026. | ATTRIBUTED | InDepthNH, Aug. 6, 2026; GSR, Aug. 21, 2026 |
| 30 | The released record exceeds 700 pages. | VERIFIED | Page counts: summary report with Exhibits A–O, 121; Exhibit P, 583; Exhibit Q, 5; final order, 3 |
Reach the editor directly — confidentiality respected where possible.
granitestatereport@gmail.com · (603) 931-9264
Editor’s note. This report is based on the resignation letter; the N.H. Supreme Court’s Sept. 15, 2026 order in JD-2026-0004; the Judicial Conduct Committee’s Stipulation and Agreement, summary report, complaint and exhibits in JC-25-079-C, including MacDonald’s June 16, 2026 answer; the N.H. Department of Justice’s Nov. 25, 2025 release; the N.H. Constitution; and reporting by NHPR, the Boston Globe and InDepthNH. The letter is reproduced in full as released. Allegations in the committee’s complaint that are not among the three admitted violations remain allegations, and MacDonald’s answer contests parts of them. The justices’ statement is dated Oct. 31, 2025; the Department of Justice release refers to it as released Oct. 30. The committee’s report attributes the impartial-judges guarantee to Part I, Article 38; the language appears in Part I, Article 35. Corrections: Granite State Report corrects verified errors promptly and appends a dated note identifying what changed and when. The corrections policy and the corrections register are public, and correction notes are never removed.
