Legal News

Willfulness? No. Undermining Public Confidence in the Judiciary? Yes.

By Dan Slater

Call him the Teflon Don of the federal bench. U.S. District Judge Manuel Real was booted from three cases this year. He’s taken flack for favoring one side over the other, for failing to adequately articulate the reasons behind his opinions, and for generally being difficult to deal with. Click here for a WSJ story from last summer on Judge Real.

Yet, he seems to evade any and all manner of discipline. In September, the 9th Circuit rejected a claim that Real should be replaced in a criminal case because defense lawyers were allegedly afraid of the judge. And here’s the latest: On Friday, reports the Recorder, the Judicial Council of the 9th Circuit dismissed two misconduct complaints accusing Real of failing to state the reasons for his rulings. The complaints had previously led the council to privately reprimand Real. But a U.S. Judicial Conference committee sent the matter back to the circuit earlier this year, with instructions to probe the element of willfulness. Real’s conduct didn’t meet that standard, the conference found.

However, the conference had this to say: “Judge Real’s acts and omissions have resulted in needless appeals and unnecessary cost to litigants in both money and time, and have tended to undermine the public’s confidence in the judiciary,” it wrote. “The occurrences here are more than anecdotal or occasional.”

The council concluded: “That such conduct was not found to be ‘virtually habitual’ or to have occurred in a ’substantial number’ of similar cases in no way lessens the importance of and the need to give reasons for a decision when required by law.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 16, 2008 (boomark / email).