How to Get Kicked Off the Bench
We’ve written before about the standard for obtaining a new judge. It’s something that many clients and more than few lawyers consider when a ruling feels wrong or unfair. But the truth is that it’s rare for a case to be reassigned because of some impropriety in judging and its generally a better use of time to think about how to win over a hostile judge or position a case better for appeal.
That said, because there are so few checks on their conduct – any in many cases a profound disincentive against reporting inappropriate behavior – when a judge goes off the rails they sometimes do so in a spectacular fashion, having strayed so far beyond the boundaries of acceptable conduct that they’re no longer even in view. What follows are some examples [1] of judges whose behavior was so egregious that it ultimately resulted in professional discipline. Consider it either as a guide to how far a judge must go before action is taken or, if you’re sore about a decision, a list of judges even worse than whomever you’re cross about.
The most explosively improper behavior by a jurist almost certainly belongs to Judge Richard Jones of Nebraska. [2] Judge Jones had some trouble getting along with his colleagues, so in addition to physically assaulting one judge in an elevator and making death threats against a second, he decided to set off fireworks in a third judge’s chambers. During the inevitable investigation, Judge Jones tried to play off the fireworks as a joke, but the Nebraska Supreme Court was unimpressed with his sense of humor, which also included signing Court orders with fake names like “Adolf Hitler,” “Snow White,” and “Mickey Mouse,” and trying to “keep staff on their toes” by writing nonsense amounts in bonds he set for criminal defendants, requiring them to post “one zillion dollars” or “13 cents.” As such, he was removed from office.
In contrast, other judges have gotten into trouble for behavior that (though improper) seems unimaginably small-ball for a person holding a respected office. For example, Commissioner Gary Grubb, a judge in Delaware Family Court, was convicted of misdemeanor shoplifting. [3] Specifically, Commissioner Grubb was caught detaching the labels from “cheap” cigars in a store and attaching them to “premium” $7.10 cigars that he hoped to buy for a fishing trip. This pettiest of petty larcenies led him to also lose his position.
Anyone who has ever felt that a judge was less than impartial might consider the case of Richard Snyder, a justice of Petersburgh Town Court in upstate New York who resigned earlier this year. [4] Snyder got in trouble for trying to avoid jury duty. When called, he first tried to avoid service by announcing that he was a judge (which didn’t work). He then escalated matters by claiming that he could never serve as an impartial juror because he knew in his heart that everyone who appeared in court as a defendant was guilty. Justice Snyder was charged with misconduct and later resigned.
The Iowa Supreme Court removed another judge this year because of concerns about impartiality. [5] Magistrate David Hanson was investigated after he refused to sign an arrest warrant in a sexual abuse case involving a teen-aged boy. Magistrate Hanson claimed that the crime was implausible and “contrary to nature” because a “normal hormone-ridden teenage boy” would have been delighted for any sexual contact. The Iowa Supreme Court took a somewhat different view of human nature and ordered his removal, writing that Hanson was “unalterably unsuited to be a judge” and “unable to preside at any hearing involving sexual assault.” [6]
In fairness to Magistrate Hanson, judges can also get into trouble for being too hard on accused criminals. Judge A. Eugene Hammermaster of Washington State was suspended for six months over his unfortunate tendency to hold criminal trials in absentia and to attempt to impose life sentences for unpaid fines. [7]
And occasionally judges get in trouble for being too chill with both the prosecution and the defense. Judge Baldwin, also of Washington State, was censured and ended up resigning from the bench after he brought a twelve pack of beer into court during jury deliberations in a DUI case. [8] Hoping to foster a sense of neutrality, he shared the beer with both the prosecutors and defense counsel, and even offered what was left to the jurors when they returned with a guilty verdict.
Sometimes, even drinking with court staff can be problematic, as Judge R. Douglas Hoffman, a municipal judge in New Jersey discovered earlier this year. [9] Judge Hoffman owned a house on Long Beach Island and purportedly extended an “open-ended invitation” for courthouse staff to join him there, an invitation that almost all of them sensibly ignored. But one staff member did not and ended up visiting with the judge on an afternoon in 2022. Eight shots of whiskey and several beers later and the judge was removed by the New Jersey Supreme Court for “demeaning his judicial office” through “blatant…sexual misconduct.” Judge Hoffman might have fared better with a more robust defense – according to the Supreme Court decision when asked why he would put his hands on a staff member, he replied: “why do I need permission for that?”
If you’ve ever been disappointed by the honesty of a judge, you might consider Judge Patrick Couwenberg, formerly of the Los Angeles Superior Court. [10] When filling out his application for the job, Judge Couwenberg forgot to mention that he had failed the bar six times and falsely claimed to have a degree from Caltech, a masters degree from Cal State LA, and a purple heart awarded for service in Vietnam. Judge Couwenberg also inflated his professional experience somewhat, claiming to have worked at Gibson Dunn (plausible) and to have worked with Scandinavian mercenaries on covert operations in Laos done at the behest of the CIA (less so).
In contesting his removal, Judge Couwenberg admitted to the misstatements, but claimed to be suffering from pseudologia fantastica, a terrible psychological condition that forces patients to tell outrageous lies. Oddly enough, the California authorities did not think that “compulsive deceit” was a disability that could be reasonably accommodated in a judge and tossed him from the bench.
And if you’ve ever thought that a judge appeared biased toward one side or the other, you might consider the case of Judge Bill Ross of the Blythville Municipal Court in Arkansas. [11] Judge Ross appears to have concluded that the best way to keep his n’er-do-well relatives out of trouble would be to handle their criminal cases himself. When his sister was charged with disorderly conduct and public intoxication, Judge Ross took the case and issued continuance after continuance for the better part of two years. Similarly, when Judge Ross’s nephew was charged with reckless driving, Judge Ross continued the case for over a year and vacated a cash bond imposed by another judge. The Arkansas authorities took a somewhat dim view of “keeping matters in the family” and ultimately forced Judge Ross to resign after he promised to never seek judicial office again.
It's easy to be upset when a ruling doesn’t go your way and clients are right to be troubled by any signs of unfairness or animosity from the court. But it’s useful to have some perspective and know that on the spectrum of bizarre behavior emerging from America’s courts, most of what we see and gripe about scarcely even qualifies as odd.
[1] Any chronicle of bad judge behavior owes something to the work of Diane Gail Cox at the National Law Journal who published annual articles on the topic in the 1990s and early 2000s, though they are now difficult to find. I also highly recommend Steven Lubet’s 2000 article Stupid Judge Tricks, published in the Harvard Law review, as well as Richard Underwood’s What Gets Judges in Trouble, published in the Spring 2003 Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judges, both of which I have cited in places.
[2] 581 N.W. 2d 876 (Neb. 1998).
[3] https://www.law.com/almID/900005518404/
[4] https://apnews.com/article/new-york-judge-petersburgh-resigns-1634b59d392c834f561d9f992864395f
[6] The Iowa Supreme Court was also less than thrilled by Magistrate Hanson’s claim that his use of the term “wetback” in open court was not a slur, nor his request that the court give him a “list” of the racially offensive terms that he wasn’t allowed to say.
[7] Richard H. Underwood, What Gets Judges in Trouble, 23 J. Nat’l Ass’n Admin. L. Judges 101, 105 (2003).
[8] Steven Lubet, Stupid Judge Tricks, 41 S. Tex. L. Rev. 1301, 1304 (2000).
[9] https://www.njcourts.gov/system/files/court-opinions/2025/d_90_23.pdf
[10] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-aug-16-me-34920-story.html
[11] https://www.jddc.arkansas.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Bill-Ross.pdf
