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Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

387 points by hhs 6y ago

jimbob45 6y ago
> Instead, the judicial commission and Hayes reached a deal. The former Eagle Scout would serve an 11-month unpaid suspension. Do these articles not get reviewed before publication? How is being an Eagle Scout relevant to this story?
- augustt 6y ago
  Why not? It's an interesting point that he was a Boy Scout, an organization whose statement is "to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes", and he went on to be a terrible human being.
  - mdorazio 6y ago
    Worth noting is that the Boy Scout organization itself declared bankruptcy as a result of ongoing scandals and lawsuits.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      If BSA is bankrupt, would it be an opportune time for the Girl Scouts of America to admit boys?
      - cptnapalm 6y ago
        They recently stated that they have no intention of doing so.
  - infamouscow 6y ago
    Because news stories and editorials are separate sections of news media. Including that bit of information is not relevant to the facts. You can take any news story and cherry-pick unrelated details to paint things in a certain light. This is a contrived example, but lets say there's a news report about MIT investing in some new technology and a journalist doesn't like MIT. The headline could read "MIT invests in questionable technology" and begin with "MIT, which has come under fire for having received $750,000 from Epstein is investing $750,000 in foobars".
- bdcravens 6y ago
  This happens all the time in journalism. An accused person's criminal history, or a politician's previous bankruptcies, etc.
- klyrs 6y ago
  Eagle Scouts get special consideration in court. Ironic -- I think they should be held to a higher standard, but instead it's used as a "sign of good character" that results in lesser penalties.
chidog12 6y ago
> Judge Les Hayes once sentenced a single mother to 496 days behind bars for failing to pay traffic tickets. The sentence was so stiff it exceeded the jail time Alabama allows for negligent homicide. > Johnson’s three children were cast into foster care while she was incarcerated. One daughter was molested, state records show. Another was physically abused. Speechless... Makes my blood boil
- meddlepal 6y ago
  This is the kind of stupidity you get with elected judges.
  - linuxftw 6y ago
    Just Democracy in action here. This is what the people voted for. Unless you believe that the government's power should be limited in some way.
    - stx 6y ago
      I don't think people literally voted for the judge to lock up a single mother of 3 girls for 500 days because of unpaid traffic tickets. They voted for a judge because they thought he would be "tough on crime", or some other slogan. I am really speculating here. The reason though is a lack of information on the voters part. I am not sure how we solve that problem though. Judges like this should be put disbarred so that they cant practice law or serve time themselves.
      - linuxftw 6y ago
        > Judges like this should be put disbarred so that they cant practice law or serve time themselves. That's just your opinion, and you're in the minority. Probably most people in that jurisdiction are happy with the overall behavior of the judge. Democracy doesn't care about the needs of the individual, only the wants of the group. The group wants exclusive use of a particular area, thus limits parking. Public streets with reserved parking, the antithesis of a functioning society.
dependenttypes 6y ago
Not sure if this is relevant to this but I would like to remind you that a US judge can order to you be sterilized without your knowledge and you can do nothing about it nor can anything be done to the judge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stump_v._Sparkman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stump_v._Sparkman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell
- downshun 6y ago
  (1978) (1927)
  - ipython 6y ago
    Unless those rulings have since been overturned, they are still precedent and therefore relevant. They don’t just expire. For example, the judges involved in the “cash for kids” scandal had their rulings reviewed using a rule established in the 18th century: > Acting under a rarely used power established in 1722 and reserved for extraordinary circumstances, known as "King's Bench jurisdiction",[58] the Pennsylvania Supreme Court appointed Senior Judge Arthur Grim of the Berks County Court of Common Pleas as special master to review all juvenile cases handled by Ciavarella
    - Natsu 6y ago
      They don't have to be directly overturned--I can't imagine that many judges are still ordering people involuntarily sterilized. All you need are other precedents or laws for something like, say, bodily autonomy ("my body my choice") that's sufficiently persuasive. I really can't imagine those rulings happening today. Did you know? In May 2020, Maryland passed into law a repeal of the crime of sodomy, effective October 1st, 2020. And there are plenty of similar laws still on the books even now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_Stat...
- linuxftw 6y ago
  So weird how the government routinely grants immunity to themselves, especially the judicial branch. I don't know when the judiciary decide it was the final say in all matters on earth, but fundamentally that is broken.
orf 6y ago
> In Texas, a judge burst in on jurors deliberating the case of a woman charged with sex trafficking and declared that God told him the defendant was innocent. The offending judge received a warning and returned to the bench. The defendant was convicted after a new judge took over the case. > In Indiana, three judges attending a conference last spring got drunk and sparked a 3 a.m. brawl outside a White Castle fast-food restaurant that ended with two of the judges shot. Although the state supreme court found the three judges had “discredited the entire Indiana judiciary,” each returned to the bench after a suspension. > In Utah, a judge texted a video of a man’s scrotum to court clerks. He was reprimanded but remains on the bench. Damn.
- js2 6y ago
  Here's the Indiana one if you want some more color: > Back in May, three Indiana judges got into a fight. It was the crescendo of an incident brimming with colorful details: a gaggle of judges drinking the night before a judicial conference, a failed attempt to visit a strip club called the Red Garter, a brawl in the parking lot of an Indianapolis White Castle. > The altercation apparently started sometime after 3 a.m., when one of the judges, Sabrina Bell, raised a middle finger at two men yelling from a passing SUV, and ended after one of those men shot two of the judges. ... > Bell "was intoxicated enough that she lacks any memory of the incident." ... > The court says its penalties are designed "not primarily to punish a judge, but rather to preserve the integrity of and public confidence in the judicial system" and, when necessary, to remove those who are unfit. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/14/779339897/3-indiana-judges-suspended-after-white-castle-brawl-that-left-2-of-them-wounded https://www.npr.org/2019/11/14/779339897/3-indiana-judges-su...
  - Kinrany 6y ago
    This actually sounds... better? The initial line read like the judges shot each other. Did they even break any laws? Getting too drunk to visit a strip club and raising a middle finger to someone is not what I expected to be among the worst examples.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
trentnix 6y ago
There are two justice systems: One for the politically connected. One for everyone else. Who watches the Watchmen?
- SkyBelow 6y ago
  It is a bit more complicated than that. There is a tiered system based on your connections, class (wealth), gender, race, appearance, and other factors (these factors are not weighted equally). To further complicate it these factors are weighted differently for different categories of crimes.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >To further complicate it these factors are weighted differently for different categories of crimes. And weighted differently by local norms.
    - trickstra 6y ago
      And by the amount of publicity they receive.
rayiner 6y ago
There is some horrible conduct detailed on here, but also not so horrible conduct: > They included a California judge who had sex in his courthouse chambers, once with his former law intern and separately with an attorney; a New York judge who berated domestic violence victims; and a Maryland judge who, after his arrest for driving drunk, was allowed to return to the bench provided he took a Breathalyzer test before each appearance. Judges in all these states are elected. Should an elected official be impeached for any of this conduct? Maybe the one who had sex with an attorney, if the attorney had cases before the judge (but the article doesn’t say that). The other stuff is bad, but is it impeachable? By lumping together really heinous conduct with things that probably should be disciplinary violations that don’t result in impeachment, it’s hard to know what the magnitude of the problem detailed in the article actually is.
- ascotan 6y ago
  I like the way the ancient greeks did it. Every year we write a name of the person that we want removed from public office. The person with the most votes gets banished for 10 years.
- ZeikJT 6y ago
  I think people are leaning further and further into retribution instead of rehabilitation. People make mistakes and we need to realize that unless the mistake is really heinous then we don't need to absolutely destroy their entire lives. We just need them to learn from the mistake, possibly pay a cost (therapy, fines, temporary unpaid leave, etc), and then rejoin society as social and economic contributors. I'd rather not pass individual judgement on these cases presented but it seems to me that some of these are more damning than others.
alexashka 6y ago
This article is depressing. What I find troubling is not only what's in the article, but what's left out. There is no call to action, there is no information provided as to what a reader can do, to help fix this disaster. It leaves you feeling deflated, because now what? Now you go about the rest of your day with this burden of knowledge. This is very common with these types of stories - it's not enough to complain, you need to provide a set of potential solutions or else people begin treating these stories the way they do homeless people - they just learn to ignore them. Maybe that's what these newspapers want or are coerced into - that'd be the darkest and most sinister interpretation.
- Invictus0 6y ago
  Reuters is just a newswire agency: it just does research and provides the facts. Downstream news outlets like Fox and NBC are the ones that will put the spin on it, and boutique outfits like commondreams and Mother Jones will give you the call to action if they cover it. The problem with Mother Jones and publications like it is that they have a pretty strong slant (they are trying to persuade you, not inform you) and they also don't run stories that go against their narrative, thereby omitting information that may inform you/provide greater context or nuance. In any case, the solution here is the same as always; write to your representatives or get involved in a protest (all variations on "advocate for change").
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    > Reuters is just a newswire agency: it just does research and provides the facts. Reuters isn't some neutral-fact agency. Reuters does tons of editorial, and has an overall editorial slant, but its customers are news outlets, not readers. Articles written from vague perspectives can run in a wider variety of publications. What you're reading here is highly editorial (though I like it.) Reuters is choosing to report on an issue that could be interesting to people by highlighting a few individual stories of lesser appeal. They could have not covered this and covered anything else (there was no "news" event.) They could have taken the position that too many judges had been removed from the bench, implying that there was a bias against judges. The reporter made a journalistic choice to investigate the crimes of judges. The reporter then made the editorial choices to report it though these particular examples, and to highlight criminal judges still serving rather than criminal judges that have been removed, or even the relatively low crime rates in judges as a demographic as compared to many other demographics. Reuters then made the editorial choice to publish the piece - which may have been preceded by sending it back with suggestions to change previous editorial choices, or maybe even handing it off to another journalist to finish. The idea that there are neutral fact-delivering voices of god somewhere is destructive, and easily taken advantage of by the people who own these voices of god. The Moonies bought UPI.
openasocket 6y ago
Some commenters are asking about what we can do to fix this, so I thought I'd list some potential action items off the top of my head: - Getting rid of elected judges will certainly help, though it looks like Hayes wasn't elected but appointed by the city council. I'm not totally clear on how local judge appointments work, but it might make sense to consolidate this power at the state legislature, which will have more visibility and accountability than the city council. In general, I think a lot of our issues with civil rights and justice reform could be helped by consolidating more power at the state level rather than the city/county level, and creating a clear hierarchy of power between the statewide and local entities. - People talk about having term limits for judges, but I'm not totally sure I agree with that. It's something to consider though, and worthy of study. - Improve funding for public defenders. It might make sense to require municipalities to match their budget for prosecutors with their budget for public defenders, or some fixed percentages. Elevating the office of public defenders and making it a viable career path, much like being a career prosecutor, would go a long way. - Look into expanding when you can rely on the services of a public defender, like in traffic court for more minor offences. For some people a hefty fine can make them destitute, and they need someone to advocate for them and make sure the fines assessed are fair. - Strengthen national organizations for public defenders, like the NAPD, through grant programs. - Increase liabilities for judges in the event of gross misconduct. This should include not just suspensions but monetary fines (which I know can be levied for lawyers engaging in misconduct). This can be done not just with legislation, but possibly legal action. And there might be grounds for civil rights lawsuits against municipalities and states that fail to properly vet and discipline judges conducting this sort of gross misconduct. Generally speaking judges are not personally liable for any actions they take on the bench, but the bodies that are supposed to oversee them could be. - The Justice Department should perform more investigations of these sorts of systemic civil rights violations, much like they did in Ferguson and Baltimore. It should be expanded to the point where they aren't just conducting these reviews after some bad behavior gets headlines, they should be conducting random audits to improve accountability. This can be backed up with legislation requiring the Justice Department to conduct regular reviews, to ensure this is happening consistently and doesn't vary from administration to administration.
godzillabrennus 6y ago
I mentored a convicted felon through Defy Ventures a few years ago. He had a wonderful idea for an app. Something that stuck with me for the last few years. Why isn’t there a yelp for the public sector including the judicial system? Every day you walk into a court room how do you know what to expect? If you are suddenly in front of a judge that decides your life’s fate wouldn’t you want to pull up historical data that tracks and publishes the judges decisions, the feedback from others who have been in your place, and be able to contribute after your experience? Wouldn’t the same be good for police? So citizens can pull a badge number and see what people in that community have to say about that cop? He wanted the app to have a panic button where users could predefine their most important emergency contacts to be pushed to social media and texted with a link to livestream what is going on (e.g. local news outlets, family, friends, lawyer(s), etc...) as the app would be broadcasting audio/video of the event unfolding. Defy Ventures is more designed for helping someone start a food truck business than building software. The idea stuck with me though and with the renewed focus on keeping power in check it should exist. If anyone wants to talk with this man who came up with the idea let me know.
- wang_li 6y ago
  It would turn into what every review system on the web is: a place to get petty revenge. Make people use their real identity and have criminal liability for lies of commission and omission, then you might have something. But probably just one more mechanism for idiots to go to jail.
  - godzillabrennus 6y ago
    You could do drop down answers to rate officials instead of free form text. Don’t know how it would work for verifying a real identity. Maybe require Moderation and only licensed lawyers can approve a new user?
    - missedthecue 6y ago
      A cop does normal things: no one leaves a review A cop leaves a ticket that a driver thinks is unfair: 1 star review Every cop would have a one star rating, which basically tells us nothing except that some people are salty, justifiably or unjustifiably. Impossible to know for certain.
tomohawk 6y ago
All judicial positions should have a set term, after which a new judge is appointed to the position, even at the Supreme Court level. For example, at the Supreme Court level, if each position was an 18 year term, each offset by 2 years, then a new justice would be nominated every other year to serve no more than 18 years. If a judge left early, the position would be filled until the end of the term. This would prevent some of the shenanigans where partisan judges wait until the political winds are blowing in the right direction before stepping down to ensure that "their side" doesn't lose out. This would also prevent judges serving for several decades with no realistic way to remove them. Having served once, a judge could be renominated, but would have to go through the approval process again.
- smt88 6y ago
  > All judicial positions should have a set term, after which a new judge is appointed to the position, even at the Supreme Court level. The problem with this is exactly the problem with all term limits: you can "sell" your decisions at the end of your term. Example: Kentucky's former governor pardoned some incredibly repulsive people because they were donors (or connected to donors)[1] and he had already lost his election. 1. https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article238437623.html https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article238...
  - tomohawk 6y ago
    You can't fix stupid. There is no perfect system. But, we can do better. Requiring judges to go through a periodic review to continue seems like a good thing to try.
datavirtue 6y ago
Tip of the ice Berg. Judge Shriver of Clermont County Ohio owned a string of dive bars which yielded a steady stream of DUI and drug charges that were brought before him. This guy would often be red in the face yelling in the court room and participated handily in a system that would lock people into a perpetual cycle of probation, arrest, and jailing of people for minor offenses. Once you were convicted or not you got probation which meant you were going to be a return customer. Most of this fuelled by cannabis charges. These judges had very little to do for society otherwise. Fucked up a lot of lives in the process. Don't get me started on the cops.
yyyk 6y ago
Not surprising at all. The original case establishing Qualified Immunity wasn't about mere police officers - it was about a state judge, and only by extension local police since they followed the judge's order. The main decision was giving state judges all but unqualified immunity[0]. When you give a group of people power to do almost whatever, it's not a surprise the bad apples stay and multiply. [0] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Opinion_of_the_Court https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Opinion_of_the... https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Dissent_Douglas https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Dissent_Dougla...
vmception 6y ago
> They included a California judge who had sex in his courthouse chambers, once with his former law intern and separately with an attorney and got caught both times
a_puppy 6y ago
Reuters focuses on a few shocking cases, like Judge Les Hayes's treatment of Marquita Johnson -- which was truly awful! But it's important to keep this in perspective. Reuters' investigation found 5,206 cases where people were affected by judicial misconduct over a period of 12 years, and the article noted two other investigations had found 3,500 cases and 2,251 cases each. For comparison, state courts in the USA hear approximately _one hundred million_ cases per year. [1] So there's evidence for misconduct in approximately 0.0009% of cases. (And I'm guessing most of that misconduct was nowhere near as bad as the Marquita Johnson case, or the other examples they mentioned; they picked the most shocking examples to showcase in the article.) [1] https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=30 https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=30
debt5000 6y ago
us judges must taste how a jail feels like before administering it.

387 points by hhs 6y ago

> Instead, the judicial commission and Hayes reached a deal. The former Eagle Scout would serve an 11-month unpaid suspension. Do these articles not get reviewed before publication? How is being an Eagle Scout relevant to this story?

augustt 6y ago
Why not? It's an interesting point that he was a Boy Scout, an organization whose statement is "to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes", and he went on to be a terrible human being.
- mdorazio 6y ago
  Worth noting is that the Boy Scout organization itself declared bankruptcy as a result of ongoing scandals and lawsuits.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    If BSA is bankrupt, would it be an opportune time for the Girl Scouts of America to admit boys?
    - cptnapalm 6y ago
      They recently stated that they have no intention of doing so.
- infamouscow 6y ago
  Because news stories and editorials are separate sections of news media. Including that bit of information is not relevant to the facts. You can take any news story and cherry-pick unrelated details to paint things in a certain light. This is a contrived example, but lets say there's a news report about MIT investing in some new technology and a journalist doesn't like MIT. The headline could read "MIT invests in questionable technology" and begin with "MIT, which has come under fire for having received $750,000 from Epstein is investing $750,000 in foobars".
bdcravens 6y ago
This happens all the time in journalism. An accused person's criminal history, or a politician's previous bankruptcies, etc.
klyrs 6y ago
Eagle Scouts get special consideration in court. Ironic -- I think they should be held to a higher standard, but instead it's used as a "sign of good character" that results in lesser penalties.

chidog12 6y ago

> Judge Les Hayes once sentenced a single mother to 496 days behind bars for failing to pay traffic tickets. The sentence was so stiff it exceeded the jail time Alabama allows for negligent homicide. > Johnson’s three children were cast into foster care while she was incarcerated. One daughter was molested, state records show. Another was physically abused. Speechless... Makes my blood boil

meddlepal 6y ago
This is the kind of stupidity you get with elected judges.
- linuxftw 6y ago
  Just Democracy in action here. This is what the people voted for. Unless you believe that the government's power should be limited in some way.
  - stx 6y ago
    I don't think people literally voted for the judge to lock up a single mother of 3 girls for 500 days because of unpaid traffic tickets. They voted for a judge because they thought he would be "tough on crime", or some other slogan. I am really speculating here. The reason though is a lack of information on the voters part. I am not sure how we solve that problem though. Judges like this should be put disbarred so that they cant practice law or serve time themselves.
    - linuxftw 6y ago
      > Judges like this should be put disbarred so that they cant practice law or serve time themselves. That's just your opinion, and you're in the minority. Probably most people in that jurisdiction are happy with the overall behavior of the judge. Democracy doesn't care about the needs of the individual, only the wants of the group. The group wants exclusive use of a particular area, thus limits parking. Public streets with reserved parking, the antithesis of a functioning society.

dependenttypes 6y ago

Not sure if this is relevant to this but I would like to remind you that a US judge can order to you be sterilized without your knowledge and you can do nothing about it nor can anything be done to the judge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stump_v._Sparkman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stump_v._Sparkman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell

downshun 6y ago
(1978) (1927)
- ipython 6y ago
  Unless those rulings have since been overturned, they are still precedent and therefore relevant. They don’t just expire. For example, the judges involved in the “cash for kids” scandal had their rulings reviewed using a rule established in the 18th century: > Acting under a rarely used power established in 1722 and reserved for extraordinary circumstances, known as "King's Bench jurisdiction",[58] the Pennsylvania Supreme Court appointed Senior Judge Arthur Grim of the Berks County Court of Common Pleas as special master to review all juvenile cases handled by Ciavarella
  - Natsu 6y ago
    They don't have to be directly overturned--I can't imagine that many judges are still ordering people involuntarily sterilized. All you need are other precedents or laws for something like, say, bodily autonomy ("my body my choice") that's sufficiently persuasive. I really can't imagine those rulings happening today. Did you know? In May 2020, Maryland passed into law a repeal of the crime of sodomy, effective October 1st, 2020. And there are plenty of similar laws still on the books even now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_Stat...
linuxftw 6y ago
So weird how the government routinely grants immunity to themselves, especially the judicial branch. I don't know when the judiciary decide it was the final say in all matters on earth, but fundamentally that is broken.

orf 6y ago

> In Texas, a judge burst in on jurors deliberating the case of a woman charged with sex trafficking and declared that God told him the defendant was innocent. The offending judge received a warning and returned to the bench. The defendant was convicted after a new judge took over the case. > In Indiana, three judges attending a conference last spring got drunk and sparked a 3 a.m. brawl outside a White Castle fast-food restaurant that ended with two of the judges shot. Although the state supreme court found the three judges had “discredited the entire Indiana judiciary,” each returned to the bench after a suspension. > In Utah, a judge texted a video of a man’s scrotum to court clerks. He was reprimanded but remains on the bench. Damn.

js2 6y ago
Here's the Indiana one if you want some more color: > Back in May, three Indiana judges got into a fight. It was the crescendo of an incident brimming with colorful details: a gaggle of judges drinking the night before a judicial conference, a failed attempt to visit a strip club called the Red Garter, a brawl in the parking lot of an Indianapolis White Castle. > The altercation apparently started sometime after 3 a.m., when one of the judges, Sabrina Bell, raised a middle finger at two men yelling from a passing SUV, and ended after one of those men shot two of the judges. ... > Bell "was intoxicated enough that she lacks any memory of the incident." ... > The court says its penalties are designed "not primarily to punish a judge, but rather to preserve the integrity of and public confidence in the judicial system" and, when necessary, to remove those who are unfit. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/14/779339897/3-indiana-judges-suspended-after-white-castle-brawl-that-left-2-of-them-wounded https://www.npr.org/2019/11/14/779339897/3-indiana-judges-su...
- Kinrany 6y ago
  This actually sounds... better? The initial line read like the judges shot each other. Did they even break any laws? Getting too drunk to visit a strip club and raising a middle finger to someone is not what I expected to be among the worst examples.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

trentnix 6y ago

There are two justice systems: One for the politically connected. One for everyone else. Who watches the Watchmen?

SkyBelow 6y ago
It is a bit more complicated than that. There is a tiered system based on your connections, class (wealth), gender, race, appearance, and other factors (these factors are not weighted equally). To further complicate it these factors are weighted differently for different categories of crimes.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >To further complicate it these factors are weighted differently for different categories of crimes. And weighted differently by local norms.
  - trickstra 6y ago
    And by the amount of publicity they receive.

rayiner 6y ago

There is some horrible conduct detailed on here, but also not so horrible conduct: > They included a California judge who had sex in his courthouse chambers, once with his former law intern and separately with an attorney; a New York judge who berated domestic violence victims; and a Maryland judge who, after his arrest for driving drunk, was allowed to return to the bench provided he took a Breathalyzer test before each appearance. Judges in all these states are elected. Should an elected official be impeached for any of this conduct? Maybe the one who had sex with an attorney, if the attorney had cases before the judge (but the article doesn’t say that). The other stuff is bad, but is it impeachable? By lumping together really heinous conduct with things that probably should be disciplinary violations that don’t result in impeachment, it’s hard to know what the magnitude of the problem detailed in the article actually is.

ascotan 6y ago
I like the way the ancient greeks did it. Every year we write a name of the person that we want removed from public office. The person with the most votes gets banished for 10 years.
ZeikJT 6y ago
I think people are leaning further and further into retribution instead of rehabilitation. People make mistakes and we need to realize that unless the mistake is really heinous then we don't need to absolutely destroy their entire lives. We just need them to learn from the mistake, possibly pay a cost (therapy, fines, temporary unpaid leave, etc), and then rejoin society as social and economic contributors. I'd rather not pass individual judgement on these cases presented but it seems to me that some of these are more damning than others.

alexashka 6y ago

This article is depressing. What I find troubling is not only what's in the article, but what's left out. There is no call to action, there is no information provided as to what a reader can do, to help fix this disaster. It leaves you feeling deflated, because now what? Now you go about the rest of your day with this burden of knowledge. This is very common with these types of stories - it's not enough to complain, you need to provide a set of potential solutions or else people begin treating these stories the way they do homeless people - they just learn to ignore them. Maybe that's what these newspapers want or are coerced into - that'd be the darkest and most sinister interpretation.

Invictus0 6y ago
Reuters is just a newswire agency: it just does research and provides the facts. Downstream news outlets like Fox and NBC are the ones that will put the spin on it, and boutique outfits like commondreams and Mother Jones will give you the call to action if they cover it. The problem with Mother Jones and publications like it is that they have a pretty strong slant (they are trying to persuade you, not inform you) and they also don't run stories that go against their narrative, thereby omitting information that may inform you/provide greater context or nuance. In any case, the solution here is the same as always; write to your representatives or get involved in a protest (all variations on "advocate for change").
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pessimizer 6y ago
  > Reuters is just a newswire agency: it just does research and provides the facts. Reuters isn't some neutral-fact agency. Reuters does tons of editorial, and has an overall editorial slant, but its customers are news outlets, not readers. Articles written from vague perspectives can run in a wider variety of publications. What you're reading here is highly editorial (though I like it.) Reuters is choosing to report on an issue that could be interesting to people by highlighting a few individual stories of lesser appeal. They could have not covered this and covered anything else (there was no "news" event.) They could have taken the position that too many judges had been removed from the bench, implying that there was a bias against judges. The reporter made a journalistic choice to investigate the crimes of judges. The reporter then made the editorial choices to report it though these particular examples, and to highlight criminal judges still serving rather than criminal judges that have been removed, or even the relatively low crime rates in judges as a demographic as compared to many other demographics. Reuters then made the editorial choice to publish the piece - which may have been preceded by sending it back with suggestions to change previous editorial choices, or maybe even handing it off to another journalist to finish. The idea that there are neutral fact-delivering voices of god somewhere is destructive, and easily taken advantage of by the people who own these voices of god. The Moonies bought UPI.

openasocket 6y ago

Some commenters are asking about what we can do to fix this, so I thought I'd list some potential action items off the top of my head: - Getting rid of elected judges will certainly help, though it looks like Hayes wasn't elected but appointed by the city council. I'm not totally clear on how local judge appointments work, but it might make sense to consolidate this power at the state legislature, which will have more visibility and accountability than the city council. In general, I think a lot of our issues with civil rights and justice reform could be helped by consolidating more power at the state level rather than the city/county level, and creating a clear hierarchy of power between the statewide and local entities. - People talk about having term limits for judges, but I'm not totally sure I agree with that. It's something to consider though, and worthy of study. - Improve funding for public defenders. It might make sense to require municipalities to match their budget for prosecutors with their budget for public defenders, or some fixed percentages. Elevating the office of public defenders and making it a viable career path, much like being a career prosecutor, would go a long way. - Look into expanding when you can rely on the services of a public defender, like in traffic court for more minor offences. For some people a hefty fine can make them destitute, and they need someone to advocate for them and make sure the fines assessed are fair. - Strengthen national organizations for public defenders, like the NAPD, through grant programs. - Increase liabilities for judges in the event of gross misconduct. This should include not just suspensions but monetary fines (which I know can be levied for lawyers engaging in misconduct). This can be done not just with legislation, but possibly legal action. And there might be grounds for civil rights lawsuits against municipalities and states that fail to properly vet and discipline judges conducting this sort of gross misconduct. Generally speaking judges are not personally liable for any actions they take on the bench, but the bodies that are supposed to oversee them could be. - The Justice Department should perform more investigations of these sorts of systemic civil rights violations, much like they did in Ferguson and Baltimore. It should be expanded to the point where they aren't just conducting these reviews after some bad behavior gets headlines, they should be conducting random audits to improve accountability. This can be backed up with legislation requiring the Justice Department to conduct regular reviews, to ensure this is happening consistently and doesn't vary from administration to administration.

godzillabrennus 6y ago

I mentored a convicted felon through Defy Ventures a few years ago. He had a wonderful idea for an app. Something that stuck with me for the last few years. Why isn’t there a yelp for the public sector including the judicial system? Every day you walk into a court room how do you know what to expect? If you are suddenly in front of a judge that decides your life’s fate wouldn’t you want to pull up historical data that tracks and publishes the judges decisions, the feedback from others who have been in your place, and be able to contribute after your experience? Wouldn’t the same be good for police? So citizens can pull a badge number and see what people in that community have to say about that cop? He wanted the app to have a panic button where users could predefine their most important emergency contacts to be pushed to social media and texted with a link to livestream what is going on (e.g. local news outlets, family, friends, lawyer(s), etc...) as the app would be broadcasting audio/video of the event unfolding. Defy Ventures is more designed for helping someone start a food truck business than building software. The idea stuck with me though and with the renewed focus on keeping power in check it should exist. If anyone wants to talk with this man who came up with the idea let me know.

wang_li 6y ago
It would turn into what every review system on the web is: a place to get petty revenge. Make people use their real identity and have criminal liability for lies of commission and omission, then you might have something. But probably just one more mechanism for idiots to go to jail.
- godzillabrennus 6y ago
  You could do drop down answers to rate officials instead of free form text. Don’t know how it would work for verifying a real identity. Maybe require Moderation and only licensed lawyers can approve a new user?
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    A cop does normal things: no one leaves a review A cop leaves a ticket that a driver thinks is unfair: 1 star review Every cop would have a one star rating, which basically tells us nothing except that some people are salty, justifiably or unjustifiably. Impossible to know for certain.

tomohawk 6y ago

All judicial positions should have a set term, after which a new judge is appointed to the position, even at the Supreme Court level. For example, at the Supreme Court level, if each position was an 18 year term, each offset by 2 years, then a new justice would be nominated every other year to serve no more than 18 years. If a judge left early, the position would be filled until the end of the term. This would prevent some of the shenanigans where partisan judges wait until the political winds are blowing in the right direction before stepping down to ensure that "their side" doesn't lose out. This would also prevent judges serving for several decades with no realistic way to remove them. Having served once, a judge could be renominated, but would have to go through the approval process again.

smt88 6y ago
> All judicial positions should have a set term, after which a new judge is appointed to the position, even at the Supreme Court level. The problem with this is exactly the problem with all term limits: you can "sell" your decisions at the end of your term. Example: Kentucky's former governor pardoned some incredibly repulsive people because they were donors (or connected to donors)[1] and he had already lost his election. 1. https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article238437623.html https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article238...
- tomohawk 6y ago
  You can't fix stupid. There is no perfect system. But, we can do better. Requiring judges to go through a periodic review to continue seems like a good thing to try.

datavirtue 6y ago

Tip of the ice Berg. Judge Shriver of Clermont County Ohio owned a string of dive bars which yielded a steady stream of DUI and drug charges that were brought before him. This guy would often be red in the face yelling in the court room and participated handily in a system that would lock people into a perpetual cycle of probation, arrest, and jailing of people for minor offenses. Once you were convicted or not you got probation which meant you were going to be a return customer. Most of this fuelled by cannabis charges. These judges had very little to do for society otherwise. Fucked up a lot of lives in the process. Don't get me started on the cops.

yyyk 6y ago

Not surprising at all. The original case establishing Qualified Immunity wasn't about mere police officers - it was about a state judge, and only by extension local police since they followed the judge's order. The main decision was giving state judges all but unqualified immunity[0]. When you give a group of people power to do almost whatever, it's not a surprise the bad apples stay and multiply. [0] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Opinion_of_the_Court https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Opinion_of_the... https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Dissent_Douglas https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Dissent_Dougla...

vmception 6y ago

> They included a California judge who had sex in his courthouse chambers, once with his former law intern and separately with an attorney and got caught both times

a_puppy 6y ago

Reuters focuses on a few shocking cases, like Judge Les Hayes's treatment of Marquita Johnson -- which was truly awful! But it's important to keep this in perspective. Reuters' investigation found 5,206 cases where people were affected by judicial misconduct over a period of 12 years, and the article noted two other investigations had found 3,500 cases and 2,251 cases each. For comparison, state courts in the USA hear approximately _one hundred million_ cases per year. [1] So there's evidence for misconduct in approximately 0.0009% of cases. (And I'm guessing most of that misconduct was nowhere near as bad as the Marquita Johnson case, or the other examples they mentioned; they picked the most shocking examples to showcase in the article.) [1] https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=30 https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=30

debt5000 6y ago

us judges must taste how a jail feels like before administering it.