33. What took them so long?

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Alice Robie Resnick was finally "reprimanded" for her drunk driving arrest of January 31, 2005.  How can it possibly take a committee -- even a committee -- 11 months to decide a case in which, the Plain Dealer tells us, "The patrol's video footage of the arrest, played repeatedly on television, show the confused and haggard-looking justice quarreling with the deferential troopers"?  What in the world could they have been talking about for 11 months? 

In my experience, lawyer and judicial disciplinary boards are carrion-feeders, picking off the weak and generally steering a wide course around the powerful.  Lawyers at the big firms, lawyers with the resources to engage the board in litigation attrition, lawyers with friends in high places, and especially lawyers who are themselves in high places -- they don't get hauled in front of disciplinary boards unless they cross a line.  And the line is a bright one: the news.

In order to get before Ohio's disciplinary board, Justice Resnick had to go to enormous lengths: a BAC that would stagger your average alcoholic, side-swiping multiple cars, quarreling with troopers, even getting back into her car and driving away, forcing the troopers to chase her down a second time, according to the PD.  All this on video, too.

So perhaps the delay wasn't prompted by a wish to revive the story during the current election cycle, to hurt Justice Resnick's re-election campaign, as one might otherwise suppose.  Perhaps the board members just didn't know what to do when forced into the unfamiliar position of meting out "discipline" to someone in a position to retaliate.