Legal News

After Judge Real, Asking: Can the System Deal With Incorrigible Judges?

By Dan Slater

We’ve been writing a lot lately about U.S. District Judge Manuel Real, and wondering aloud: Is an early, and perhaps involuntary, retirement in the offing? Yet, Judge Real, even after getting booted from three cases in just four months, remains on the bench. Today, the WSJ’s Nathan Koppel explores whether, given Real’s staying power, the federal bench can adequately police itself.

“The very people charged with meting out carefully measured punishments are themselves subject to imprecise sanctions that are either too lax, according to some critics, or too severe to be used except in the rarest occasions,” writes Koppel, referencing the life tenure granted to so-called Article III judges.

“How many people in America hold jobs where, if you do them badly enough, the punishment is you have to stop working and collect your pay?” says Charles Geyh, a judicial ethics prof at Indiana University. Public shaming is a sufficient sanction for most judges, Geyh says, but probably not for “the maverick judge who doesn’t give a damn.”

And, indeed, any public shaming has seemed leave Judge Real undeterred. The House Committee on the Judiciary held hearings in 2006 over whether to impeach Judge Real, but no action was taken. Real’s critics in congress couldn’t muster enough votes for impeachment, as some members said they felt the matter should be left to the Ninth Circuit to handle. Yet, a Ninth Circuit judge twice declined to penalize Judge Real, though a court disciplinary body did eventually issue a written reprimand.

“Is the federal system well equipped to deal with incorrigible behavior by judges?” asks Mr. Geyh. “No, not where the behavior doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 08, 2008 (boomark / email).