When Judicial Misconduct Isn't "Cognizable"

A federal judge had a lawyer shackled, manacled, and imprisoned for talking back. She was chained to a chair for hours, alone in a freezing prison cell, next to a smelly toilet. No problem!

“District judges are required to do what is necessary to maintain order in their courtrooms.”

That was the conclusion of Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Mary H. Murguia, when she dismissed a complaint filed against U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson of the Central District of California.

Judicial misconduct complaints are heard by the chief judge of the federal circuit where the alleged misconduct occurred. The U.S. judiciary refuses to create an independent body to investigate and decide judicial misconduct complaints, like the executive and legislative branches, claiming this would infringe upon judicial independence.

The judicial complaint process therefore is vulnerable to complaints of cronyism and cover-ups.

Judge Murguia said the complaint against Judge Wright was “lacking evidence that the district judge exceeded his authority, behaved in a demonstrably egregious and hostile manner, or otherwise engaged in ‘conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts.’”

But Judge Murguia’s findings contradict a small, daily legal newspaper in Los Angeles, Metropolitan News Enterprise, which covered the events that occurred on Nov. 17, 2021, as well as the complainant’s version of the events.