Let’s play a little game. It’s called “What Would You Do?”
* If a buddy of yours was having an extra-marital affair, would you run interference for him?
Sure man, I mean bros before, well you know.
* What if the person he was having an affair with was a subordinate at work?
Yeah, I’d probably do that — it’s like old school 60s Mad Men s**t.
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* What if you worked at the same place as these clandestine lovers?
Maybe a little awkward at times, but why not.
* Would you threaten to fire an administrator that suspected some hanky panky and tried to reassign the subordinate to another role?
Well… I mean the job market is rough out there…
* Well, would you bully an attorney into re-writing a motion for recusal that discussed the impropriety and growing scandal?
Hmmm…
Let’s talk about the friendship of two California judges, Judge John Fielder and Judge Cory Woodward. In the little bit of roleplaying above, Judge Woodward was the fellow engaged in an affair with his clerk, and Judge Fielder helped keep it under wraps for as long as possible (Judge Woodward publicly came clean about the affair in May, 2013). Judge Fielder is now facing the consequences of his actions.
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Yesterday the Commission on Judicial Performance (CJP) issued a public admonishment to Judge Fielder for two different incidents.
The first was over the assignment of Judge Woodward’s clerk (remember, the one he was having an affair with). When a court administrator discussed reassigning the clerk with Judges Woodward and Fielder, Fielder lost his temper and suggested that he could rally all the judges in order to have the admin fired. Yeah, the CJP didn’t take kindly to that. From The Recorder’s report:
Fielder “engaged in a discussion that was too aggressive, too heavy-handed, and could have been intimidating to court administration,” the CJP wrote.
The judicial watchdog said that it is not a judge’s responsibility to get involved with court administration matters, and suggesting that [the administrator’s] employment was at risk violated several rules.
But wait! There’s more!
Judge Fielder was also… overprotective of Judge Woodward when evaluating an attorney’s motion. See, the attorney had a case presided over by Judge Woodward at the time and the attorney felt that due to the scandal over the affair, Woodward should be disqualified from the family law matter. As supervising judge, Fielder had to evaluate whether it was properly filed as an ex parte submission. Instead, Judge Fielder called the submitting attorney into his chambers and intimidated the lawyer into changing the filing. From the public admonishment:
Judge Fielder concedes that he was concerned that “the flamboyant statements” in the declaration “unnecessarily implicated our court administration in improper acts and cast aspersions on Judge Woodward’s family.” He believed the statement that the court was “sweeping aside” Judge Woodward was “an inaccurate overstatement” and that the references to Judge Woodward’s family were “mean-spirited and unnecessary.” He says he may have asked the attorney if he thought Judge Woodward’s family “deserved this kind of treatment in a public document.”
Even Judge Fielder admits his statements could have been taken “as not allowing him to file the documents unless the content was changed.”
So the lesson here is even when sticking up for a buddy, remember you still have obligations as a judge.
Read the full admonishment on the next page.
Bench Bro Code Draws Public Admonishment [The Recorder]