Jordan Singer

Second West Virginia supreme court justice pleads guilty to federal fraud charges

On Tuesday, federal prosecutors announced that West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Menis Ketchum had pled guilty to one count of wire fraud, stemming from his personal use of a state-issued automobile and credit card. Ketchum is the second state supreme court justice to face federal charges; former Chief Justice Allen Loughry was previously charged with 23 counts of fraud and related misconduct.

The guilty plea comes as the state legislature continues to investigate the possibility of impeachment for one or more members of the state’s highest court.

Thousands in Poland protest latest judicial reforms

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party continues to press reforms to that country’s judiciary which trample on judicial independence and the autonomy of the court system. The latest reforms, which would force dozens of judges into early retirement and allow the government to hand-pick their successors, drew thousands to the streets in protest late last week.

AFP reports:

Chanting “Shame!”, “Free courts!” and “We’ll defend democracy!”, several thousand protesters rallied in front of the presidential palace in Warsaw just hours after PiS-allied President Andrzej Duda signed into law a controversial measure effectively allowing the government to pick the next Supreme Court chief justice.

Warsaw lawyer Bozena Rojek, 68, said she had returned to protest on the same street where she had rallied against the Communist Party’s brutal 1981 martial law crackdown on the freedom-fighting Solidarity trade union. “I fought for democracy so that there would be free courts, so that we live in a free country with the rule of law,” she told AFP.

“Today everything’s crumbling right before our eyes,” Rojek added.

On transferring judges within a court system

Two remarkable, parallel stories broke this week, each involving the transfer of a state judge to another division within the court system. In Pennsylvania, Judge Lyris Younge was transferred from her longstanding seat in Philadelphia Family Court to the Court of Common Pleas Civil Division. It’s an odd move, given that Younge has almost no civil experience, and that the Civil Division is typically a landing spot for the state’s most highly competent judges. Insiders speculate that the transfer was an administrative effort to “hide” Younge in the Civil Division until an ethics probe related to her (apparently obnoxious) behavior in the Family Court is resolved.

In an eerily similar move in New York, Judge Armando Montano was reassigned from his longstanding seat on the Bronx Criminal Part to the Bronx Domestic Violence Part–a change that Judge Montano has characterized as a “disguised punishment.” Montano argues that moving him from felony cases to domestic violence cases is essentially a demotion. The court administrator disagreed, claiming that it was a “routine administrative reassignment” and that the domestic violence cases that Montano would be handling are “complex.”

The players in both stories seem to be hiding key facts here. Surely there was something specific motivating the transfer to Judge Montano, who is nearing retirement, to an entirely different division. And surely there is some internal reason for transferring Judge Younge to a division in which she has virtually no experience. And those reasons must be significant, since the outcome in both cases is worse for the litigants who are now slated to appear before the judge. Bronx DV litigants can look forward to a disgruntled Judge Montano, who believes that he is above having to rule on their cases. And Philadelphia litigants can hold their breath over Judge Younge’s competence to decide their matters–not to mention her own anger over reassignment. The judges, of course, are keeping mum about their respective behaviors that led to the reassignments.

These incidents keenly demonstrate the complexity of organizational management within a court system. Unable to completely remove judges (who, for reasons of competence, ethics, temperament, or some combination of the three) should not be on the bench, court administrators have to resort to reassignment mechanisms to reduce ongoing problems. When the issues are made public, there is often little they can say. But we can surely read between the lines.

North Carolina legislature (again!) passes a law affecting judicial elections

When I started following North Carolina’s judicial election process a decade ago, it was a model for fair practices in directly electing the judiciary. Candidates ran in nonpartisan, publicly funded elections, and much of the chicanery that affects judicial elections in other states (like attack ads, targeted campaigns, and the like) was largely absent.

But sadly, the last couple of years has seen the North Carolina process turn into a clown show, as as aggressive state legislature tussles with the governor politicize the judiciary. Elections are once again partisan, and filling vacancies is ugly and political. And there is no sign of it ending anytime soon.

To wit: this week the state legislature passed a new law that appears to target a single candidate for the state supreme court. Chris Anglin is one of three candidates for an open seat on the court this fall. Anglin was registered as a Democrat until June, when he changed his party affiliation to Republican. The switch meant that two candidates would be identified as Republicans, and one as a Democrat, on the ballot.

Republican legislators, apparently concerned that the presence of two Republicans on the ballot would split the partisan vote and throw the election to the lone Democrat, hurriedly passed a bill that would remove any party designation for a candidate who switched parties less than 90 days before the election. As a result, Anglin would remain on the ballot, but without a party designation.

Republicans have couched the bill as a fair compromise to prevent the gaming of the election system. Democrats and Anglin are both crying foul. The question now is whether Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, will veto the bill.

West Virginia Supreme Court update

The West Virginia House Judiciary Committee continued its impeachment inquiry into the state supreme court this week, with particular focus on indicted former chief justice Allen Loughry. Thursday morning, the supreme court’s former court administrator is expected to testify.

Meanwhile, the state’s judicial ethics commission cleared three other justices in an investigation stemming from the court’s practice of ordering in working lunches on the taxpayer dime. There is no question that the practice was pervasive, but the state Judicial Investigation Commission (JIC) also concluded that it was “longstanding” and preceded the terms of the current justices. The JIC also concluded that the working lunches allowed the court to run more efficiently. The justices were admonished, however, that such practices should be reduced to writing to the policy is clear.

“The Highest Court in the Land”

Sports Illustrated has lost a couple of steps as it struggles to compete in the new media environment, but it still occasionally puts out a great, original read. With that, I recommend this article by Stanley Kay on the basketball court in the Supreme Court building, and the athletic adventures of its occupants.

India’s Chief Justice: “Most subordinate courts lack basic infrastructure”

Last year I discussed a shocking story on the backlogged conditions in India’s courts, and the extraordinary consequences of that backlog for litigants, lawyers, and judges alike. Speaking this week at the opening of a new courthouse, India’s Chief Justice Deepak Misra once again acknowledged the problem, stating that the courts lack the basic infrastructure needed to competently manage their caseloads.

The Chief Justice apparently blamed the challenges on the “miniscule” budgetary allocation that the courts receive. And surely the courts are hampered by the limited space and staffing they receive. But blaming the problem entirely on resource dependence is problematic in its own right. Delays and administrative problems have been shown repeatedly to be at least partially a problem of court culture. Can the Chief Justice convince the country’s judiciary to adopt internal changes and accountability measures that might, in the end, win them additional support for more resources?

Death threats against Bosnian judges

Two senior judges in Bosnia received threatening text messages over the weekend.

Ranko Debevec, president of the Court of Bosnia and Herzeoginva, which handles cases of war crimes, terrorism and organised crime, told BIRN he received a text message that began with the word ‘fatwa’, a ruling on Islamic law.

The message accused him of cooperating with the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and said he had been sentenced to death.

Jadranka Lokmic-Misiraca, vice-president of Bosnia’s judicial overseer, received a similar death threat the same day.

Let’s hope that police officials take these threats seriously, and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Texas judges warn of judicial emergency after surge of case filings

Judges in Collin County, Texas are requesting additional resources–in the form of more courts and/or judges–after a surge of case filings in recent years. The eleven district judges in the county received more than 2100 new cases each in the past year, and that number is expected to increase.

As the Dallas Morning News summarizes:

Based on the current caseload, judges who want to keep up can spend no more than 53 minutes on each case and must dispose of nine cases a day.

But that’s not realistic. A hearing just for temporary orders in a divorce case takes about an hour, the judges said. Spending three days on a trial means having to find the equivalent of 26 other cases that require no time.