Judiciary to track sexual misdeeds
The federal judiciary will begin tracking and publicly releasing data on sexual harassment complaints against judges, one of several changes it is exploring after a powerful appeals court judge’s resignation over misconduct allegations, according to a letter from the director of the administrative office of the U.S. Courts.
In an 18-page letter, Director James Duff wrote that the federal judiciary already had implemented several changes and was examining others to encourage reporting. His letter came in response to an inquiry from the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had inquired about how the court was responding to news reports about misconduct among federal judges.
The judiciary, like many other entities, has been grappling with changes in the wake of the #MeToo movement, particularly after The Washington Post reported on sexual misconduct allegations against Alex Kozinski, a once powerful and well-known judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Those allegations sparked a judicial investigation into Kozinski, though he stepped down from the bench soon after the probe got underway. The judicial council handling the case announced earlier this month it was closing the matter because it no longer had jurisdiction over the former judge.
In their letter, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, wrote that they were “deeply troubled” by the allegations against Kozinski and other news reports that indicated the problem might be more widespread.
CNN — which first reported that the judiciary would track sexual harassment allegations — published a story in late January asserting that very few of the 5,000 judicial misconduct orders over the past 11 years were deeply investigated and that judges were very rarely disciplined. On Wednesday, the judiciary said in a news bulletin that 1,303 misconduct complaints were filed in fiscal 2016 — more than 1,200 by dissatisfied litigants and prison inmates. The judiciary said none related to sexual harassment, nor were any complaints filed by law clerks or judiciary employees.
Duff wrote in his letter that was the case in most years. There was, however, one law clerk who alleged sexual harassment in 2016 by a judge through a different process known as the Employee Dispute Resolution program.
“The sad fact is that, just as in other public and private workplaces, sexual harassment issues are often not reported,” Duff wrote. He said the judiciary was “addressing this issue by removing barriers to filing complaints and educating employees about the options they have available.”