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Judging Crimes is a blog about criminal law, violent crime and the judiciary, dedicated to making the liberal case for greater democratic control of the criminal justice system.  It's a "view from the trenches" because it's written by a practitioner, not an academic or journalist.  It examines the changing role of the judiciary in American society by looking at what judges actually do, rather than what they say.  I know what they do because I deal with the consequences every day. 

Opinions issued by judges, from Supreme Court justices on down, are justifications for the exercise of governmental power.  But it is the exercise of power itself that should command our attention, not the justifications.  Judging Crimes is concerned with the reality of judicial power rather than the verbal formulas used to defend it. 

American law professors have long liked to say they teach their students "to think like a lawyer."  Learning to think that way is a matter of internalizing certain assumptions.  The practice of judging is likewise based on a foundation of shared assumptions, among them that the United States Constitution -- a document of 8,335 words, the length of a book chapter -- provides an answer to every question.  Rather like a Ouija board.

These assumptions are so ingrained -- and their internalization is so necessary to the successful practice of law -- that most people who subscribe to them aren't even aware of having done so.  Judging Crimes will try to engage not just with the expressions of judicial power, but with the assumptions on which those expressions  rest.  

Judging Crimes won't be filled with daily entries commenting on the day's events or provide a best-of-the-web welter of links.  Many other blogs already do that, far better than I could hope to do.  (Check out these.)  Instead, Judging Crimes will contain pieces of a length that might seem long for a blog but would be short in a serious magazine.  I hope to post new pieces several times a week.

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In Our Name
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« 209. The skull beneath the skin (updated) | Main | 207. Hot buttons »
Wednesday
20Dec2006

208. The Sinking of the Sloop John R.

This blog has asked a couple of times what it takes to fire a judge.  (See post 60 and post 103.)  Firing a judge is not a particularly severe punishment.  In fact, it's hardly a punishment at all, because the ex-judge simply returns to the practice of law.  It is a measure of the psychological moat judges dig around their thrones  that they prefer to endure all sorts of public humiliation rather than return to the practice of a profession that requires them to appear as humble petitioners or sycophantic courtiers in front of the likes of themselves.  (See post 185.)

Judges can engage in outrageously unethical, abusive and downright illegal behavior and not be removed from the bench.  (See, e.g., post 92 and post 108.)   And members of your state's highest court - being the ones who run the disciplinary system - are immune from all ethical rules under the doctrine of rex non potest peccare, as judicial conduct boards from Washington and Connecticut have recently confirmed.  (See post 198.) 

Nonetheless, occasionally lower-court judges are removed, and it's always instructive to see to what lengths they have to go to suffer that ultimate degradation, becoming a (shudder!) mere lawyer again.  John R. Sloop, formerly a Florida judge, demonstrated one method that proved effective: imprisoning people for the crime of following instructions from court personnel.  Sloop, whose only defense was that he was mentally unfit to be a judge in the first place (see post 87), discovered that arbitrarily imprisoning people is one way to get removed from the bench.

Santa Barbara's ex-Judge Diana Hall didn't have to go to that extreme to get herself booted.  She just had to get convicted for drunk driving - twice, fraudulently conceal the source of a $20,000 campaign contribution, and improperly question a prosecutor about the prosecutor's decision to excuse her from hearing a case. 

So we can say with certainty that it is, after all, possible to fire a lower court judge.  But the judge has to be prepared to work hard to achieve it.

AuthorJoel Jacobsen | Comment1 Comment | | |
DateWednesday, December 20, 2006 at 11:54AM in ,

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