Judge’s Dramatic Resignation Masks Prior Judicial Inquiry

LAP President and Founder Aliza Shatzman spoke with Law 360 about a federal judge who resigned after publicly criticizing former President Donald Trump, a move widely framed as a principled stand. However, the judge’s resignation followed a judicial inquiry, raising concerns that stepping down from the bench can be used to evade accountability.

"Judges are the most powerful members of our government. They interpret our laws - that is an incredible power. As long as they are not subject to those same laws themselves, the public should have zero confidence in the federal judiciary as a fair, neutral arbiter of disputes."

Few clerks file complaints against judges. Not because judges don't mistreat clerks - the judiciary's own survey revealed that as many as 106 judges mistreated their clerks in 2023, yet that year only 3 clerks filed JCDA complaints) - but because clerks fear retaliation, which they're not legally protected against under Title VII, and reputational harm.

"It's not just that judges' references carry a lot of weight, which they do, as judges are rigorous employers. Clerks' potential employers - public defender offices, U.S. Attorney's Offices, and law firms - are also very fearful, if they practice in that judge's jurisdiction, of pissing off a judge by hiring a clerk they don't like," said Aliza Shatzman in the article. Judges retaliate against clerks for filing complaints by reaching out to subsequent employers and getting them axed from their dream jobs: or, the threat of this happening precludes clerks from blowing the whistle on misconduct in the first place.

Transparency and public accountability are some of the most effective tools at our disposal. Yet when judges know even if they're investigated, their identities and nature of the misconduct will be protected from public scrutiny and public accountability, that's not much of a deterrent to bad behavior. For example, in the recent matter involving Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby, the public "only knew the judge's identity because The Legal Accountability Project announced it" in a press release and news coverage.

Judicial discipline is not crafted to deter or prevent bad behavior. For example, Shatzman described the remedies imposed upon Griggsby as "toothless" and "laughable" and pointed out that "those same remedies failed to deter other federal judges from mistreating their clerks," including Judge Sarah Merriam, against whom LAP recently filed a complaint (and whose toothless remedies in her first disciplinary order mirrored those in Griggsby's).

The current disciplinary system allows judges accused of misconduct to step down to evade accountability because, under the JCDA, if a judge steps down, the judiciary ceases the investigation into their misconduct. A bill LAP helped introduce last year in the wake of another judge, Kesha Tanabe's, resignation to evade accountability, called the TRUST Act, would close this loophole, allowing investigations into judges' misconduct to continue even after they leave the bench. This would address situations like that of former judge Mark Wolf, who "allegedly resigned to take a principled stand against Trump administration lawlessness," but "actually resigned amid a misconduct investigation to evade accountability."

In the wake of three separate publicly-reported judicial misconduct investigations within the span of just six weeks, far more must be done. We've seen appalling but unsurprising radio silence from federal courts' leadership and members of Congress. To put it bluntly: not a single member of Congress has made a single statement in the wake of any of these threem judicial misconduct matters, even those in which their constituents were the law clerk complainants. The time for meaningful action to protect judicial branch employees and hold judges accountable is right now.