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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6788 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025

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The 1980 Judicial Conduct and Disability Act, signed by Jimmy Carter, gave judges the power to police themselves through an obfuscated multi-layer system where chief judges dismiss almost all the complaints and judicial councils choose confidential sanctions in most of the cases where they even admit wrongdoing occurred.

Then in 2008 the federal judges "reformed" themselves, which seems to have made things even worse. I have to look into this more, obviously a complicated issue.

Is it working?

Let's say that the appointment rate of bad judges stays constant over the centuries, but the enforcement mechanisms change. We could see:

  1. a bad judge makes a number of bad decisions (possibly just one) and retires without sanction after a full career. Zero impeachments but many bad decisions.
  2. a bad judge makes a number of bad decisions and is impeached. One impeachment.
  3. a bad judge makes a number of bad decisions and is referred to the committee and accepts their recommendation to resign. Zero impeachments.
  4. a bad judge gives off some warning signs without any substantive bad decisions and is referred to the committee and either accepts their recommendation to resign or reforms and becomes good. Zero impeachments and zero bad decisions.

All I can say after reading this is that we aren't in scenario #2. The tweet author is suggesting #1, but both #3 and #4 fit with the evidence presented.

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