working draft by Sean L. Harrington
suggested citation: Harrington, S.L. (Apr 2008) Comprehending judicial behavioral pathology. Retrieved insert date, http://www.knowyourcourts.com/featured_article.htm

Introduction

Why would a 60-year-old federal judge of purported superior intellect unlawfully park in a disabled parking space of a drug store, then respond to the objections of a woman confined to a wheelchair by flashing his badge, identifying himself as a federal judge and threatening to have her removed by U.S. Marshalls?

Why would an august federal judge, who is a past chairman of a technology committee, use a government computer in chambers to download and view pornography from an adult swingers' Web site?

What might motivate a once-respected federal judge to make a gratuitous and impertinent remark about an acrobatic sexual position during a criminal trial?

Why would a federal judge, shortly after being commissioned, stop the proceedings during trial to obtain the identity of a striking woman, who had just entered the courtroom to take a seat in the gallery?

Analysis

This dread disease can be caused by wielding a gavel in the line of duty, and its symptoms include advanced pomposity, pathological sanctimoniousness, congenital self-importance, and aggravated eccentricity. Judges suffer from this disease grow so arrogant, so out of touch, so remote from everyday life that they think the normal rules of good behavior and human decency don't apply to them. Its not hard to understand how judges can fall prey to this malady. After all, when you wear a black robe, everyone --staff, litigants, even haughty maitre d's-- bows and scrapes and genuflects before you. All your witticisms are suddenly hilarious, all your observations astute, all your suggestions readily adopted. Your fellow man invariably addresses you as 'Your Honor' or 'Judge.' Nobody's ever mean to you and if they are, why, you can lock them up.

Jim Brooks, a judge of the Orange County California Municipal Court, ran "his" courtroom like the Jay Leno Show: Rather than holding up an "Applause" placard, he'd instead hold up an "overruled" sign in ruling on plaintiffs' objections. He tolerated and, at times, encouraged counsel to "make snide comments at will," such as narrating and singing the Rod Serling Twilight Zone intro while cross-examining a witness. Brooks had already received prior discipline for comments reflecting ethnic bias, such as, among other things, referring to Hispanic litigants as "Pedro" and issuing a bench warrant for an Asian defendant for "twenty thousand yen." The Commission on Judicial Performance noted that greater discipline was not imposed in light of the judge's agreement to retire, although, in addition to his presumed retirement benefits, he was permitted to exercise his accrued 128 days of vacation after leaving the bench.

A. Eugene Hammermaster, a municipal judge in Pierce County, WA, was known as "The Hammerin' Man." He had zero tolerance for people he disliked. He had been previously disciplined for trammeling the rights of low-income or unrepresented defendants. After Hammermaster completed a six-month suspension and agreed to stop threatening to impose life sentences for unpaid fines and not to hold any more trials in absentia, he was reinstated, even though he was unrepentant. He explained that everyone knew it was a joke when he told defendants they'd spend their lives in "The Crowbar Hotel" over minor fines and that it benefited defendants to hold their trials in their absence. Not long after, reports accrued of his ordering Hispanics to learn English, unwed couples to marry and those driving with suspended licenses to sell their cars. Undesirables were banished from town. One transcript shows him humiliating an unemployed mental patient. When the Judicial Discipline Commission came calling the second time, the Hammerin' Man, 67, cut a deal: He agreed to resign in return for the Commission dropping its investigation.

In a disciplinary proceeding against another federal judge, Samuel B. Kent, a judicial council’s report suggests several incidents of sexual harassment: "Following its initial investigation, the Special Investigatory Committee notified the judge in question of an expansion of the original complaint ... to investigate instances of alleged inappropriate behavior toward other employees of the federal judicial system and ultimately recommended that a reprimand of the judge be issued along with the accomplishment of other remedial courses of action," the council’s order said. However, other sources have told The Galvelston County Daily News that, at a party and in the offices of a law firm, a drunken Kent cornered women and grabbed them. The news outlet was also told that federal agents had been interviewing Galveston restaurateurs about who the U.S. district judge had dined and drank with throughout the years, and who has picked up the tab. Dick DeGuerin, Kent’s attorney, confirmed that the federal probe extended beyond claims of sexual misconduct: "They’re being as thorough as they can be and they’re investigating all the rumors that have been going on for years." DeGuerin admitted. "There’s always been rumors that Judge Kent favored certain lawyers or other lawyers were in disfavor with him." So far, the only discipline spelled out in a September, 2007 order was a reprimand, a four-month paid suspension and unspecified "remedial" action, which several commentators have observed amounts to a four-month paid vacation.

Donald Thompson, spent almost 23 years on the bench in Oklahoma. His sterling career ended after allegations surfaced that Thompson exposed himself at least 15 times during trial between 2001 and 2003. In addition to being observed shaving his genitals during at least one trial, he was caught masturbating with the aid of a "penis pump" during four trials in the same period. His former court reporter told authorities that she saw Thompson use the device almost daily during an August 2003 murder trial. A whooshing sound could be heard on the audiotape of the trial. When jurors asked the judge about the sound, Thompson said he hadn't heard it but would listen for it. Prosecutors built a case against the judge after a police officer testifying in a 2003 murder trial saw a piece of plastic tubing disappear under Thompson's robe. During a lunch break, officers took photographs of the pump under the desk. Investigators later checked the carpet, Thompson's robes and the chair behind the bench and found semen. Thompson, 59, was convicted of four felony counts of indecent exposure for the incidents that took place in his Creek County courtroom.

David Lanier, not unlike Judge Nottingham, was a seemingly unlikely suspect -- highly educated, influential in his community and trained in the law. However, Lanier, a state judge in Tennessee, sexually assaulted a number of women over several years, who appeared before him as litigants or who worked for him as clerks, probation officers or secretaries. Because Lanier came from a powerful family, it was difficult for local authorities to act. In fact, the District Attorney for Dyer County was Lanier's brother. Consequently, federal authorities spearheaded the investigation which culminated in 11 counts charging Lanier with various kinds of sexual assault against five women, including two instances of forced oral copulation. Between 1989 and 1991 Judge Lanier had systematically sexually assaulted the women in his chambers and in his courtroom. Many of the victims were single mothers, emotionally and economically vulnerable, who sought redress in court or courthouse jobs in an economically depressed community. Overcoming substantial reluctance to testify publicly, the victims' damaging testimony about the judge's behavior resulted in his convictions in December 1992 for conduct that ranged from willful grabbing and groping of the victims' breasts and genitalia to forced oral copulation. Before trial, he was jailed when his bail was revoked for having improperly contacted the witnesses in an effort to influence their testimony at trial. He received a prison sentence of 25 years and was fined $25,000. During the pendency of an appeal, Lanier fled to Mexico, but was soon captured by U.S. Marshals after his case was made the subject of a television episode on America's Most Wanted. The state legislature eventually removed him from office.

A former Michagan judge, James Scandirito, delayed sentencing a woman for driving with a suspended license in 1998. The Macomb County circuit judge invited her to lunch and told her he could help "clear some of this up." He fondled and kissed her, then continued a sexual relationship with her for two to three months. In another case the same year, Scandirito went to lunch with a woman who pleaded guilty to drunken driving, on the pretense of asking her to volunteer with Students Against Destructive Driving. He improperly touched her and told her to keep their meeting secret. In his disciplinary hearing, Scandirito presented a letter from a therapist who diagnosed him with "Impulse Control Disorder" and "Attention Deficit Disorder, Adult Residual Type." Joseph Cozzolino, chief assistant prosecutor in Macomb County, explained that he never pursued a criminal investigation because the victims did not want to press charges. Scandirito resigned from his position as judge after the state began investigating his conduct.

"Our research suggests that a moral identity motivates behavior, but that accurate, ethical judgments are needed to set that behavior in the right direction . . . A person’s moral identity can interact with his or her judgments and actually push ethical behaviors to extreme levels."

The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals . . . The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire . . . Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

Conclusion

References