Lawmakers ask chief justice for answers on US judges' recusal failures

Two Democratic members of Congress sent a letter Thursday to U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts asking if enough is being done to address the failure of 131 federal judges to recuse themselves from cases involving companies in which they or their family owned stock.

In the letter, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Seattle cited a Wall Street Journal report which revealed 131 judges violated federal law and the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges by "overseeing court cases involving companies in which they or their family owned [individual] stock."

"The scope of the ethics violations by dozens of federal judges -- as reported by the Wall Street Journal -- is stunning," the letter stated

Many of the judges named in the report serve or have served in California. For example, The Journal reported U.S. District Judge Janis L. Sammartino in San Diego had committed 54 recusal violations, the second most of any judge named in the report. Sammartino, seemingly in response to the investigation, recused herself last month from a major antitrust case over tuna price-fixing which she had presided over for over seven years. In re: Packaged Seafood Products Antitrust Litigation, 3:15-md-02670-DMS-MDD (S.D. Cal., filed Dec. 9, 2015).

Responding to The Journal's report, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said it was "carefully reviewing the matter."

Warren and Jayapal's letter asked Roberts many questions including: What were the results of the AO's investigation so far? When does Roberts expect the investigation to be completed? Will Roberts commit to publicly disclosing the findings and recommendations of the investigation once it is finished?

Commenting Thursday, Arthur Hellman, professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, said, "The Chief Justice will probably point out that the director of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts has already directed Judicial Conference committee staff to review the judiciary's conflict screening process and to submit recommendations on ways to clarify or improve the process to the committees of jurisdiction at their next meetings."

"In any human system there will be occasional lapses. But the message will be that the judiciary takes this very seriously and will take steps to avoid the glaring errors that the Journal found," Hellman added.

In Thursday's letter, Warren and Jayapal proposed enacting an Anti-Corruption & Integrity Act, which they said would close gaps in the judicial ethics system and restore public trust in the federal judiciary. They said the bill would replace the current disclosure process with a requirement that judges post certain financial disclosure reports online. Instead of allowing judges to decide whether to recuse themselves from cases without comment, the bill would allow chief judges to establish binding recusal processes and require written explanations for recusal decisions. Federal judges, including Supreme Court Justices, would be forbidden from owning individual stocks, "radically reducing the likelihood of conflicts of interest without the need for recusal proceedings," the letter stated.

Finally, the bill would establish "real consequences" for ethics violations, including civil penalties, prohibitory injunctions, and expedited disqualification and impeachment processes, the letter said.

California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla, both Democrats, were not available for comment Thursday.