Legal News

Bar Association Chancellor Calls for Judge Berry's Resignation

By Brian Harris

Amaris Elliott-Engel
Of the Legal Staff

The Philadelphia Bar Association called upon Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Willis W. Berry today to resign from the bench  in the wake of the judge's suspension for four months without pay by the state Court of Judicial Discipline for running his real estate business out of his judicial chambers.

Chancellor Sayde Ladov said, after consultation with Chancellor-Elect Scott Cooper and Vice Chancellor Rudy Garcia, that she decided to write a letter to Berry today calling for his resignation. The letter was released to the public around the same time it was hand-delivered to Berry's chambers, Ladov said.

While other Philadelphia judges have gotten in trouble with the court in the last year, Ladov said the bar association was calling on Berry to resign, and did not call on those other judges to resign, because the court found Berry had brought the judicial office into disrepute.

"The court makes it very clear the judge's actions brought disrepute to the office," Ladov said. "The judge used his office. He used taxpayers? money to engage in his private real estate business on court's time and taxpayers? time."

The court found that Berry violated the state constitution and brought  the  judicial office into disrepute by running his real estate business out of his chambers. Berry may have violated the state's diversion of services statue, prohibiting people in power from diverting services for their own personal benefit, the court said, because he used the resources of his judicial office for his personal benefit, varying from not having to pay salary and benefits to Carolyn Fleming, Berry's then-judicial secretary who also managed his rental property business, and not having to pay office overhead.

"We find that respondent's active operation of a real estate business out of his office, at the very least, trivializes the fundamental concept of judicial office," the court's majority opinion said. "We find respondent's conduct of this business and use of his judicial secretary to manage the day-to-day operation of the business demonstrated a flagrant, open ... disregard for the dignity of judicial office. It also demonstrated a total disregard for the citizens of the commonwealth, including those that elected him, by misappropriating their funds to pay his business expenses, primarily for Fleming's services."

The court's sanction was unanimous, but the court's finding that Berry brought the office into disrepute came on a 6-2  vote.

Ladov said she was not going to comment on whether she though the Court of Judicial Discipline should have removed Berry from the bench.

"They did what they thought was appropriate and the bar association is doing what it thinks is appropriate," Ladov said.

Ladov said in her letter Berry's resignation would be "the only appropriate response that you can make to help restore public confidence in the judiciary."

The bar has not always thought poorly of Berry. Berry was found recommended by the bar association for retention in 2005, Ladov noted.

Berry's counsel, Samuel C. Stretton, a West Chester, Pa., solo practitioner, was not available for comment before this blog item was posted.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on July 16, 2009 (boomark / email).