Time To Conclude U.S. Courts Are Ethically Bankrupt?
Four federal judges acted to cover up one of the worst judicial misconduct scandals in U.S. history. None were disciplined under the Court's system of self-policing.
It is the biggest scandal to hit the U.S. court system in years.
And it is undisputed that four judges tried to cover it up.
Yet none of them has faced any consequences for violating federal judicial ethics rules.
Meanwhile, Jackson Walker, the Texas law firm where former U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones’ paramour, Elizabeth Freeman, worked as a partner, failed Tuesday to resolve a demand from the U.S. Justice Department to claw back $11 million in fees awarded by Jones in at least 26 cases. A trial date now will be set.
An investigation found probable cause that Jones violated seven canons of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges when he failed to disclose his relationship with Freeman and approved more than $1 million in fees related to work Freeman’s work on bankruptcy cases.
The relationship benefitted Jones financially because he and Freeman co-owned a house, and she co-paid property taxes on the dwelling. It helped Freeman, who earned $750 per hour, land multi-billion cases. Jackson Walker benefitted by serving as local counsel to Kirkland & Ellis, the world’s largest law firm by revenue, which brought many of its biggest cases to Jones’ Houston courtroom.
Jackson Walker has to defend its conduct, but apparently not the powerful federal judges who effectively enabled the scam by sealing it from public view.
The predictable result of a system of self policing.
Judges are no different from police officers or doctors; they are pressured to overlook and abet misconduct by their peers. When a complaint is filed, the vast majority are dismissed by chief circuit judges with vested interests in the matter.
There is NO independent review of judicial misconduct complaints.
The Jones case could not be ignored because it was explosive and damning to the bankruptcy court system. Hundreds of Jones’ cases had to be transferred to other judges, and every decision he issued involving Jackson Walker came under scrutiny.
Jones’ relationship with Freeman became public solely because a disgruntled litigant, Matthew Van Deelen, 74, a one-time math school teacher, refused to take “no” for an answer.
In 2021, Van Deelen received an anonymous letter stating Jones issued favorable ruling in cases involving Jackson Walker because Jones was romantically involved with Freeman, a partner at the firm. Van Deelen had lost a $146,541 share in an oil company when Jones signed off on a bankruptcy plan proposed by Kirkland & Ellis.
Four Judges; Four Cover-Ups
Van Deelen asked Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur in March 2021 for permission to question Jones under oath. “I’m not going to let you take a deposition about the contents of an anonymous letter,” Isgur replied.
Judge Isgur prohibited Van Deelen from even discussing the letter’s contents, calling them inadmissible hearsay, and denied a motion to recuse Jones.
That was the first cover-up.
It strains credibility that Judge Isgur had no knowledge of Jones’ relationship with Freeman.
According to reporting (mainly from Bloomberg), Judge Isgur regularly picked Jones up at his home so they could drive to work together. Jones and Freeman reportedly dated and/or lived together since at least 2017. Van Deelen uncovered evidence in the public record that Jones and Freeman owned a home together.
The second cover-up occurred in September 2021. Jackson Walker asked Judge Jones himself to seal the letter from public view, which he readily did, despite the obvious conflicts of interest. Jones also excluded the letter from freedom of information requests.
The third cover-up occurred when Van Deelen again sought to have the anonymous letter unsealed in January 2023. U.S. District Judge Andrew Scott Hanen ruled that the letter was properly sealed. Judge Hanen called the allegations in the letter a “form of unsupported character assassination” that “has no place in any court proceeding.”
The fourth cover-up was on October 2023 when U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison said he was keeping the anonymous letter sealed due to “judicial security.”
Does Anyone Care?
Judges Isgur, Ellison and Hanen had an ethical obligation to report Jones’ misconduct to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for investigation. None did. Instead, they effectively abetted Jones’ misconduct for a couple of YEARS by sealing the anonymous letter from public view, this enabling Jones to continue failing to apprise creditors of his conflict of interest, and to profit financially.
One would think the systemic cover-up of judicial corruption would be worthy of investigation by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit or the Judicial Conference of the United States, which supposedly oversees the court system. Apparently not.
If Van Deelen had given up, corruption in the Houston bankruptcy court would be ongoing.
The anonymous letter finally went public on Oct. 6, 2023, when The Wall Street Journal published an article stating that Jones failed to disclose his relationship with Freeman, who worked on several bankruptcy cases in Jones court.
Then-Chief Judge Priscilla Richman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Court, opened an ethics investigation on Jones, and found probable cause that Jones had violated at least seven Canons of the Code of Conduct.
Judge Jones immediately resigned, which Judge Richman said removed him from the jurisdiction of the court. That concluded the matter.
How does it serve the public’s best interest to allow a judge to avoid accountability for years of misconduct by resigning?
It was reported a year ago that Jones was facing a criminal inquiry by federal prosecutors, but no charges have been forthcoming.
Judges Isgur, Ellison and Hanen are still presiding over cases in Texas.
The other person who escaped accountability in the scandal was Freeman, who said she had no legal duty to disclose her relationship with Jones.
A Gallup poll in 2024 found that Americans’ confidence in their nation’s judicial system and courts dropped to a record-low of 35%. It would seem likely that the lack of enforcement of judicial conduct rules is a factor.