In the wake of the ugly Aaron Persky recall, a new group arises

The June recall of Judge Aaron Persky in California has led to the formation of a new group, dedicated to making it harder for politically motivated mobs to remove judges from the bench. The Daily Post reports:

San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Barbara Kronlund, the co-chair of the newly launched Judicial Fairness Coalition, said the group wants to educate the public on the role of judges and look at amending state law to avoid future recalls over unpopular decisions.

“There should be a requirement of misconduct in office, either high crimes, misdemeanors, violating the Code of Judicial Ethics, hearing a case where you have a conflict,” Kronlund said. “It seems to me that makes a lot more sense than what we’ve got going on right now.”

Kronlund has been giving talks to Rotary and Kiwanis groups about the dangers of “baseless” attacks on judges since 2006, after Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster faced a recall threat from gay marriage opponents over his ruling in favor of same-sex domestic partnerships.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Paul Bacigalupo, co-chair of the new coalition and president of the California Judges Association, said he also wanted to look into changing the code of judicial conduct to loosen up the restrictions on judges talking about their cases.

That would allow judges to respond to criticism of their decisions, which Persky wasn’t able to do when opponents slammed him over the six-month jail sentence he gave to Stanford sex assailant Brock Turner.

As I have noted repeatedly, one can vehemently disagree with the leniency of the Turner sentence, and still conclude that the removal of Judge Persky was wholly irresponsible. That doesn’t mean that recall should be off the books entirely; if a judge repeatedly shows incompetence or indifference in applying the law or guaranteeing procedural fairness to all parties, a mechanism for removal may well be appropriate. It will be interesting to see how (and if) the Judicial Fairness Coalition works to address that balance.