Judicial sanctions to go online

March 13, 2008

Information on federal judicial misconduct sanctions will soon be as close as your computer, according to our sister blog, DC Dicta.

Under new rules approved this week by the U.S. Judicial Conference, sanctions will be posted online and will identify the federal judge involved by name.

Information about complaints that are dismissed will remain confidential, but the new rules (PDF) allow the USJC’s Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability to review such dismissals to determine whether special investigating committees should be appointed.

The rules come in response to a 2006 report by a special committee chaired by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer that identified problems with some judges’ handling of high-profile complaints against their colleagues, DC Dicta says.

Breyer praised the new rules in a statement, calling their implementation “a very good thing” for the federal courts and those who use them.

Now, you might think Maryland must be way ahead of the feds on this point. After all, the Web site for the state’s Attorney Grievance Commission prominently posts the names and offenses of sanctioned lawyers, with big, boldly marked links for 2006, 2007 and this year’s ongoing count.

But does the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities follows suit for sanctioned state judges? No; at least, not anywhere that I could find online.

True, people choose their lawyers, not their judges. But why have two different standards for online disclosure?

BARBARA GRZINCIC, Managing Editor/Law

UPDATE: Gary J. Kolb, executive director of the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities, says a new Web site is in the works, pending the commission’s vote on March 24. “I’ve been pushing for this for a long time,” Kolb says. If approved, the new site will be “more accessible and more useful” than the current one-page fact sheet, with a downloadable complaint form, a Q&A section, a copy of the ethics rules and annual reports with statistics on claims handled by the commission, among other information. Will it include public sanctions for individual judges, though? “Not this first version,” Kolb says, but he’s working on it.

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Posted by The Daily Record | Filed Under attorney grievance commission, law 

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