426. System justification

Every state has a judicial standards commission of one sort or another.  It's easy for people like to stand on the outside and criticize them with the benefit of hindsight, but the fact is that many hard choices have to be made, priorities established, resources wisely utilized, and cliches recited. 

For example, take a look at the dilemma facing the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board.  It had before it allegations against three judges from Luzerne County, and limited resources.  Which complaint or complaints should it investigate?

Allegations against one judge were that she (significant pronoun) was "'impatient, undignified and discourteous' to her staff, created a tense atmosphere in her chambers, badgered witnesses and attorneys and arrived late to court sessions."

The allegations against the other judges were that they -- both of them male -- took kickbacks in exchange for sentencing juveniles who hadn't done anything subjecting them to detention to a private detention center in proceedings that didn't rise to the dignity of kangaroo courts, blighting the kids' futures while imposing devastating pain on both them and their parents.  (See post 417 and post 400 and post 390 and post 389.)

It was a stark choice, as attorney George Michak pointed out.  On the one hand, "a judge who was accused of having a bad attitude."  On the other hand, "serious allegations against two judges accused of serious ethical breaches and even criminal conduct."

Given the limited resources of the board, which do you go after?  Hint: the two male judges helped the board's efforts against the female one. 

During the period of time that elapsed between the Board receiving complaints against gangster judges Conahan and Ciavarella and those two reaching the since-rejected plea agreement with federal prosecutor, "Ciavarella might have sentenced more than 2,000 juveniles to the for-profit detention centers he and Conahan were allegedly paid off to support."

That's 2,000 juveniles sold for kickbacks -- or what Ciavarella, with the chilling ingenuous of the true psychopath, called "finders fees" -- as a direct consequence of the Board's decision to put all their resources into reinforcing the old boys' network against Judge Lokuta.

The role of judges is to enforce the status quo.  That's not a criticism; the law is the status quo.  So perhaps it's not surprising that a judicial standards board would take the same approach, defending the way things are, no matter how corrupt.

The same mindset can be found in a case from Kermit, Texas.  (I'd never heard of it either, but it turns out to be on the corner of my own state - it's apparently pretty flat down there.)  The New York Times story on the shameful felony prosecution of two nurses for reporting concerns about a bad doctor to appropriate medical authorities can be found here. 

Over at ScienceBlogs, Mark Dunford has interesting insight on the broader problems exposed by the case. 

And the local Winkler Post has a wonderful take on the whole shebang.

Adding another twist to the case, the state was represented by an Odessa private attorney because the one-person district attorney's office was experiencing poor health, according to the Times.  Hmmm.  I  hope he gets well soon, or alternatively acknowledge the diplomacy with which he passed the cup from his lips, whichever is more appropriate.

The Pennsylvania's Board was acting on the same impulse as the Texas sheriff who arranged the absurd charges against the nurses, and the hospital administrator who fired them for going over his head to state disciplinary authorities.

One name for the impulse is "system justification," a theory that explains much about the American legal system -- though judges and lawyers are usually pretty good at burying  the tell-tale signs under piles of self-righteous, self-serving rhetoric.  I'm inclined to think the Pennsylvania Board decided to go after Lokuta because the two male gangster judges were under investigation for acts 1,000 times worse than anything she was accused of. And that made sense.

Exposure of the gangster judges, after all, was also exposure of the Pennsylvania Judicial Judicial Conduct Board.