“All right now, boys—smile!”

From the ABA Journal:

“A Philadelphia traffic court judge has been removed from the bench for showing a female court clerk photos of his privates. In a one-sentence ruling on Thursday, the Court of Judicial Discipline took action for what it called judicial misconduct. However, a lawyer for former judge Willie Singletary called the incident a ‘one-time accidental mistake’ and said the judge had resigned from office in February…According to attorney John Summers, the judge accidentally displayed photos of his genitals for a period of seconds and he and the court clerk were sharing innocuous cellphone content with each other. A legal ethics complaint contended the judge also asked her ‘Do you like it?’ at the time.”

Some thoughts:

• Why would a judge have photos of his “privates” on his cell phone? I mean, unless they call frequently him up to chat….
• As long as he only uses such photos to gaze admiringly at himself when he feels blue, presumably this wouldn’t disqualify him from being a judge, correct?
• If he actually only showed such photos to the clerk by accident, should she have made an issue of it? Would she? I would think that a complaint would only be justified if she felt she had been harassed, or if the photos she saw indicated illegal conduct by the judge, such as storing child porn.
• Perhaps the photo was of his privates when he was just a child. Hmmm. Is that child porn, I wonder?
• Is “Do you like it?” proof of harassment? What if he were responding to a reaction from the clerk? If she laughed, gasped, said “Wowsers!” or applauded, would “Do you like it?” still be inappropriate?
• This seems to be another example of moral luck. For all we know, lots of judges have offensive images on their cell phones. An image of one’s own privates is presumably only offensive if viewed by others, agreed?
• This might have been, in fact, a ‘one-time accidental mistake.’ But it is still judicial misconduct. The conduct implicates at least three Canons of Pennsylvania’s Judicial Ethics Code:

Canon 1. Judges should uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary.

An independent and honorable judiciary is indispensable to justice in our society. Judges should participate in establishing, maintaining, and enforcing, and should themselves observe, high standards of conduct so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved. The provisions of this Code should be construed and applied to further that objective.

Canon 2. Judges should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all their activities. 

A.  Judges should respect and comply with the law and should conduct themselves at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. 

Canon 3. Judges should perform the duties of their office impartially and diligently.

…

(3)   Judges should be patient, dignified, and courteous to litigants, jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and others with whom they deal in their official capacity, and should require similar conduct of lawyers, and of their staff, court officials, and others subject to their direction and control.

No matter how it happens—mistake, plot, technological glitch—a judge who shows a photo of his privates to anyone who is remotely involved with the justice system is likely to be in professional trouble, and should be.

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Facts: ABA Journal

Graphic:  The Mirror

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.