Rep. Hank Johnson, the Democratic Congressman who famously expressed the fear that “Guam might tip over” because of all the U.S. military equipment on the island, filed his ‘‘Transparency and Responsibility in Upholding Standards in the Judiciary Act’ (or the ‘‘TRUST Act’’ to its friends). The bill aims to deal with a serious ethics problem in the judiciary, one of many.

Under the Judicial Conduct & Disability Act, the law that supposedly governs judicial discipline, investigations into misconduct are terminated when a judge retires, resigns, or dies. How convenient! The mere departure of a judge from the bench is enough to halt any inquiry into alleged abuses of their office, misconduct, even crimes. This system shields bad judges from accountability

With life tenure and unchecked power, judges have lots of opportunity to engage in outrageous behavior, and many do. Berating and demeaning (or sexually harassing) law clerks, forcing them to watch pornography, firing clerks on a whim, and judged concealing serious cognitive decline are among the offenses that have resulted in zero consequences for judges in recent years: all a judge needs to do to keep his or her pension and reputation is to quit. If they are not senile, they can often nab high-paying jobs with law firms.

Law clerks, who are generally recent law graduates, are ground zero for this problem. The secrecy of judicial chambers ensures impartiality, but it also enables unethical conduct. When clerks properly alerts authorities to unethical judicial conduct prejudicial to justice that they have witnessed, the clerks are putting their legal careers on the line. The annual number of complaints filed by clerks against judges rarely exceeds three—in 2024 there were two—which is res ipsa loquitur: it speaks of a system where clerks are intimidated and bullied into submission.

Law clerks lack basic legal protections. The federal judiciary has exempted itself from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other anti-discrimination laws. This legal immunity leaves whistle-blowing clerks vulnerable to retaliation with no recourse.

The TRUST Act is a step in the right direction (I wonder who helped poor Hank write it?) but definitely not enough. It is a small part of the Judiciary Accountability Act reintroduced in 2024, which would finally extend federal anti-discrimination protections, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, to more than 30,000 exempt federal judiciary employees, enabling them to sue and seek financial recourse. The JAA would legally protect employees against retaliation for reporting misconduct, which is the main reason clerks don’t file complaints.

Allowing an unethical judge to quit instead of facing a full investigation enables the judiciary to avoid addressing the culture of persistent misconduct among those in black robes. Until judicial conduct is treated as the high priority problem it should be, judges will abuse their power, clerks’ lives and careers will be destroyed, and the number of bad judges in the U.S. will remain unacceptably high.