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Only 29 disciplines issued. From 1,414.

And you may be surprised to find out that 90% of these complaints were from people in front of the judge like litigants, and only 3% from lawyers.

When I reached out to this commission to talk about this important issue of judicial review I found myself in a phone/email loop of Kafkaesque proportions. I never got anybody. It shouldn’t be this hard.

Kafkaesquedefinition: “Kafka's work is characterized by nightmarish settings in which characters are crushed by nonsensical, blind authority. Thus, the word Kafkaesque is often applied to bizarre and impersonal administrative situations where the individual feels powerless to understand or control what is happening.” Merriam Webster

There is also something called the Judicial Council of California which is the policymaking body of the courts. When I tried to contact them about Judge Coats and judicial review in general, I was told they can’t comment. However, the press person referred me to the commission. That commission, as I said, was where I couldn’t reach a person. Hence the Kafkaesque loop.

Having no luck with the judicial system I decided to speak with those who know judges best:  lawyers.  This is when I discovered an alarming self-silencing.  Many lawyers spoke with me off the record only, saying they were concerned if they spoke about judicial review in general, when going before a future judge their clients could be harmed.

Wait, what? First litigants and now lawyers? Since when is having constructive conversation about positive improvements in America met with self-gagging for the fear of reprisal? We have laws about this –  put there by lawyers and judges and litigants - for the benefit of us all.  How is it that it doesn’t seem to apply to this crucial segment of the population?

As with the piece I did a couple of months ago on our financial institutions, fear and retaliation exist in the very halls created to keep this from happening. And with no one talking about this our justice system is trudging along.  The very people best equipped to make positive change can’t talk about it in an open and healthy way. Those on the inside not only know the problem areas (and people), but are best equipped to put up guardrails. Paging Kafka.

In 2021, a Wall Street Journal article found that, “More than 130 federal judges have violated U.S. law and judicial ethics by overseeing court cases involving companies in which they or their family owned stock. A Wall Street Journal investigation found that judges have improperly failed to disqualify themselves from 685 court cases around the nation since 2010.”