AJS comments on federal judicial conduct rules

Most of the Society’s proposals were designed to clarify or emphasize particular provisions, in several examples, by moving language from the comment to the text of the rule.  In addition, the Society proposed two new express exceptions to confidentiality that will allow disclosure when the subject of a complaint has become public through independent sources or when there is evidence of a crime, violation of the code of professional responsibility, or threat to someone’s safety, insofar as such an exception would be consistent with the Act.  The Society proposed two amendment to ensure that the handling of complaints regarding delay and disqualification promote the purposes of the Act. 

The Society’s comments were prepared by a committee comprised of:
Professor Stephen Burbank (University of Pennsylvania Law School),
Judge Avern Cohn (Senior Judge, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan),
Gordon Doerfer (former associate justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court),
Judge Cara Lee Neville (District Court of Minnesota for Hennepin County),
Judge John Tunheim (U.S. District Judge for the District of Minnesota), and
Cynthia Gray (director, Center for Judicial Ethics). 

 The comments are available on the Society web-site at http://www.ajs.org/ethics/pdfs/AJScommentsondraftrules.pdf.

For more information on the draft rules and the Breyer Report, visit http://www.uscourts.gov/library/judicialmisconduct/commentonrules.html