Judicial Misconduct

Prosecutors in the Mexican capital say they have bolstered a case of judicial misconduct against a judge who freed the confessed killers of a U.S. businessman after calling the gang ringleader "a modern Robin Hood." A new arrest order was issued against the freed suspects, Samuel de Villar, the Mexico City attorney general, said late Saturday.

Superior Court Judge Susanne Shaw, currently under state investigation for alleged judicial misconduct, presided over a 1997 drug case that was dismissed after another judge ruled that she persuaded a defense witness not to testify. The incident, uncovered this week in court documents, is not related to the 12 charges against Shaw that a state commission is now investigating.

An L.A. Superior Court judge was publicly admonished Tuesday for writing a letter on court stationery to settle a personal dispute with the city of Downey. The Commission on Judicial Performance disciplined Judge Joseph Di Loreto for a 2004 letter asking for more time to remove a trailer next to his law offices at 8607 E. Imperial Highway in Downey.

The alcoholism that destroyed Judge Robert Bradley's career began 30 years ago when he turned to drinking to cope with the horror and bloodshed of the Vietnam War, a psychiatrist told a panel reviewing misconduct charges against the jurist. Dr. Lloyd Moglen testified Tuesday, the final day of Bradley's hearing, that the 57-year-old judge suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Do state employees owe greater allegiance to a corrupt public agency than to the people of California, whom they actually serve? If so, that is why John Plotz, a veteran attorney for the California Commission on Judicial Performance, is locked out of his office and threatened with termination. His "crime" is that he criticized the commission to a friend, thereby instigating legislation that would hold California judges accountable to judicial ethics.

Daniel Tavares Jr. served 16 years in a Massachusetts prison for killing his mother with a carving knife. He associated with racist inmates, but Tavares expressed universal hostility: He repeatedly threatened to kill or maim his father, various state officials and prison guards. His father called him "pure evilness." Tavares, 41, was released from prison in June.

Two ex-judges and a prominent attorney were convicted Friday in a judicial corruption case that exposed a "good old boy" system of favoritism in the San Diego courts that the trial judge said had been festering for years. After seven days of deliberation, a federal court jury convicted ex-Superior Court Judges G. Dennis Adams and James Malkus and civil attorney Patrick R.

Hearings in a state probe of Orange County Superior Court Judge Susanne Shaw ended Thursday with her lawyer saying the veteran judge may have offended some but never crossed the line into judicial misconduct. In closing remarks to a panel of three appellate justices, attorney Thomas M. Goethals stressed that Shaw never violated any rules or ethical boundaries. "If style is what is objectionable here, then God help us.

When Robert H. Furey Jr. ran for Los Angeles municipal judge two years ago, the voters lacked an important piece of information about him. Furey, a Catalina Justice Court judge, had been under investigation by the state Commission on Judicial Performance for 22 months for misconduct, including the repeated jailing of a woman who had filed a complaint about him. Furey lost the election, and eight days later the commission recommended to the state Supreme Court that he be removed from the bench.

Claiming its trial was tainted by judicial misconduct, Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to set aside the landmark ruling that it violated antitrust laws and to force the government to start over with a new judge. The software giant also asked a federal appeals court to delay any further proceedings until the Supreme Court decides whether to accept the case.