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The commission disciplines for driving under the influence of alcohol to outbursts in the courtroom and bias. However, one  thing they don’t cover must be mentioned.

“Notably, legal error itself is not considered misconduct.”

Oh, the absurdity.

That’s because there are, of course, limits to what the commission can do.

“The Commission is not an appellate court, and cannot change judicial decisions. The Commission also cannot provide legal assistance to litigants, or intervene in litigation on behalf of a party. When a judge makes an incorrect decision or misinterprets the law, the ruling can be changed only through the proper appellate process.”

While the commission reports are available online, a lot of this work is done in private.  In the yearly report however, parts are redacted.

“The Commission also publishes redacted summaries of all private discipline each year in its annual report.”

A Forum for Discussion

Who judges our judges is exactly the issue that Nicholas Kaizer and his New York law firm partner Richard Levitt, were considering.  They decided to do something about it. They practice primarily in the areas of criminal defense and post-conviction relief in New York State and in the federal courts throughout the country.

They decided to create The Robing Room, a website that has 65,000 to 85,000 views monthly.

“Our reason for being is to provide a forum for lawyers and non-lawyers to discuss their experiences with judges, with the dual expectations that this airing of views will both inform our readership and improve the judiciary,” Kaizer told me.

“You might be interested to know that many judges have set alerts so they become aware of any new reviews. We also provide an anonymous and safe place for users to connect with one another and hold a dialogue concerning the judiciary offline.”

(Judge Coats happens to have one of the highest amounts of comments for the county, many rather critical.)

Kaizer explained to me that the site has been fully populated with 94 federal district courts, containing district judges and magistrates, and 12 federal courts of appeal. It also has judicial listings for all 50 states containing more than 3,000 counties. There are thousands of judges, magistrates and commissioners listed. It is constantly being updated and they host over 117,000 judicial reviews and ratings on the state sites and 35,000 on the federal site.

It’s one of the largest sites devoted to discussing judges and is routinely monitored.

“It’s critical that those who dispense justice should be highly qualified, fair and impartial.  Therobingroom.com provides insight whether reviewed judges indeed possess those qualities.”