Intersecting Attorney and Judicial Misconduct

The Yale Law & Policy Review sponsored an excellent conference on judicial politics this weekend, which included a panel on judicial ethics. Larry Fox discussed the disturbing case from Georgia involving a romantic affair between Superior Court Judge Paschal E. English and Public Defender Kimberly Cornwell. During the affair, Cornwell brought at least 225 cases before Judge English, but the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council concluded that there was no need to notify the implicated defendants because of an absence of actual prejudice. The Council determined that doing so would be cumbersome and would likely lead to unwarranted appeals. As Larry noted, this conclusion works a great injustice. Every affected defendant deserves the information and opportunity to seek a new trial.

While clearly the exception to the rule of ethical conduct by both groups, cases of intersecting attorney and judicial misconduct may occur more often than we would like to acknowledge. Other examples include the Luzerne County scandal in Pennsylvania, in which judges and attorneys colluded to send youth defendants to juvenile detention centers owned by the attorneys, and the conviction of Charles Dean Hood in Texas, presided over by a trial judge who was having an affair with the prosecutor. The results are devastating, not only for the individuals directly affected by the misconduct but for the legitimacy of our court systems. Given the high stakes, we should work towards a more systematic understanding of how attorney and judicial misconduct interrelate and how systems of attorney and judicial conduct regulation can and should reinforce each other.

Many thanks to all the panelists on Saturday for their thought-provoking comments. Special thanks and congratulations to the capable editors of the YLPR who organized the conference in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the journal.