Courts Must Better Police Themselves on Harassment, Chief Justice Says

[Borealis]

[URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/us/politics/john-roberts-courts-sexual-harassment.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=politics"]source[/URL]

[QUOTE]WASHINGTON — Responding to the retirement of a prominent appeals court judge accused of sexual harassment, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the federal court system must do more to protect law clerks and other employees from abusive conduct.

“Events in recent months have illuminated the depth of the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace,” the chief justice wrote in [URL="https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2017year-endreport.pdf"]his year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary[/URL], released Sunday, “and events in the past few weeks have made clear that the judicial branch is not immune.”

That was an unmistakable reference to the [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/us/alex-kozinski-retires.html"]sudden retirement of Judge Alex Kozinski[/URL] two weeks ago after [URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/prominent-appeals-court-judge-alex-kozinski-accused-of-sexual-misconduct/2017/12/08/1763e2b8-d913-11e7-a841-2066faf731ef_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.4aa7f7f9e50b"]The Washington Post[/URL] [URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nine-more-women-say-judge-subjected-them-to-inappropriate-behavior-including-four-who-say-he-touched-or-kissed-them/2017/12/15/8729b736-e105-11e7-8679-a9728984779c_story.html?utm_term=.82f410423328"]reported[/URL] that some 15 women had accused him of sexual harassment. Judge Kozinski had served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for more than three decades, establishing a reputation as a powerful and unpredictable intellect and a vivid writer.

The women, many of whom had served as his law clerks, said Judge Kozinski had touched them inappropriately, made unwanted sexual comments and forced them to view sexual materials on his computer.
In announcing his retirement, Judge Kozinski suggested that he had been misunderstood and apologized.
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“I’ve always had a broad sense of humor and a candid way of speaking to both male and female law clerks alike,” he wrote. “In doing so, I may not have been mindful enough of the special challenges and pressures that women face in the workplace.”[/QUOTE]

[Sableye]

The courts have a worse problem than percieved sexual harasment. Congress is now appointing purely partisan judges with no say from the minority party, basically destroying all credability in the justice system from here on out, especially the Scotus where the bar has now been substantially lowered in terms of a nominee's independence

[SCPH7503]

[QUOTE=Sableye;53027234]The courts have a worse problem than percieved sexual harasment. Congress is now appointing purely partisan judges with no say from the minority party, basically destroying all credability in the justice system from here on out, especially the Scotus where the bar has now been substantially lowered in terms of a nominee's independence[/QUOTE]

If someone in the justice system is sexually harassing their co-workers, I'd question their ability to uphold the law when confronted with these types of issues in the court. If it's a problem, it needs to be dealt with, just as much as incompetent or overly partisan judges.