Judge Discipline

Judge Discipline in the United States

Complaints Against Judges and Disciplining Judges in the United States

A snapshot of complaints against judges and how many were disciplined.

In 2012, as in past years, the state’s Commission on Judicial Performance published a report chronicling the bad behavior of California’s judges. And like previous surveys, what this year’s report shows most dramatically is how rarely judges are disciplined. As of 2011, there were 1,786 judges on the bench. But over the past half century, only 25 judges have been removed from office and just 48 were publicly censured. Some of those punished had accumulated a long laundry list of commission admonishments. Others were caught in egregious behavior, like Judge Patrick Couwenberg of Los Angeles County Superior Court, who in 2002 was found to have lied about his judicial credentials and service in combat. And impairment sometimes contributes, as in 1977 when Supreme Court Justice Marshall F. McComb was found to be suffering from senile dementia.

Complaints Against Judges and Disciplining Judges in North Carolina

Until 1973 the only way to discipline a wayward judge in North Carolina was impeachment
by the General Assembly.

A state constitutional amendment effective at the beginning of 1973 empowered the General Assembly to adopt additional procedures for censure and removal of judges for misconduct or disability.

The resulting legislation authorized the North Carolina Supreme Court to censure or remove judges and established the Judicial Standards Commission to receive and investigate complaints and to recommend action to the supreme court.

Starting in 2007 the legislature gave the supreme court the option of suspending a judge and authorized the Judicial Standards Commission to issue public reprimands on its own.

The act also confirmed the commission’s already existing practice of private letters of caution. In 2013 the General Assembly removed the commission’s authority to issue public reprimands, though the supreme court still has that option.

As it now stands, only the supreme court may publicly discipline a judge.

Forty plus years of experience with the current disciplinary framework have resulted in 53 published opinions of the supreme court on recommendations from the Judicial Standards
Commission plus seventeen public reprimands by the commission while it had that authority
from 2007 to 2013.

Removal of Judges

In the forty plus years of the present scheme of judicial discipline the North Carolina supreme court has removed nine judges from office, eight for misconduct and one for disability.


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