judicial misconduct
Ethics Dunce, Judicial Division: Arkansas Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen
That’s the judge lying down. At least he wasn’t wearing his robe…
Arkansas circuit judge Wendell Griffen granted a temporary restraining order last week halting the Arkansas Department of Corrections from executing seven condemned prisoners within eleven days as it had planned, as Griffen barred the use of one of the ingredients in the lethal drug “cocktail.” A federal judge followed up quickly with anothee order likewise barring Arkansas from proceeding to execute anyone with a lethal injection. Mission accomplished, Judge Griffen decided to reward himself by attending an anti-death penalty rally in which he participated with elan, playing a condemned prisoner lying prone on a lawn chair as if it was a gurney.
What fun! And what an idiot! No ethics alarms went off, despite the fact that he was flagrantly displaying his bias against the death penalty immediately after interfering with the state’s law enforcement based on a fair and objective interpretation of the law.
State officials were outraged, and argued that Griffen’s conduct proved that he was not capable of impartiality in capital cases. Ya think?
Yesterday the Arkansas Supreme Court pulled Griffen from all pending death penalty and lethal injection protocol cases. It also referred him to the state’s Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission to determine whether he violated the Code of Judicial Conduct.
Good. Continue reading
The Unethical Courtroom Exchange Of The Century!
This would have been rejected by “Boston Legal” as too ridiculous.
In a Rome, Georgia court room, as others looked on, Floyd County Superior Court Judge Bryant Durham allowed himself to be provoked by a defiant murder suspect named Denver Allen.
What resulted was a rare (thank goodness) example of a judge lowering himself, his position, the court and the justice system to the level of those with no respect for the law or society. Here is a portion of the transcript:
Stay classy, Judge Durham. Continue reading
Ethics Heroes: The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct
Thank you, Commissioners, for avoiding the impulse to support a fellow judge, and standing up for decency, compassion, and common sense in the judicial profession.
In a display of arrogance, rigidity and callousness that has justly haunted her for three years, Sharon Keller, the Presiding Judge of the State Court of Criminal Appeals, told a clerk to close down the courthouse on the dot of 5:00 PM on September 5, 2007, knowing well that attorneys were rushing there to file a last-minute appeal to save a prisoner from execution. Once the doors were closed, there was nothing they could do, and their client, Michael Richard, was put to death that night. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 
The post about the absurd Arkansas judge who saw nothing wrong with taking part in some anti-death penalty protest theater shortly after halting some scheduled executions. Can we say “objectivity”? Sure we can!
The impetus for Steve-O-in NJ’s Comment of the Day was what could be called dicta in the original post about the dubious role models for judicial conduct currently sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Here is Steve-O-in-NJ’s Comment of the Day on the post, Ethics Dunce, Judicial Division: Arkansas Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen: