What began as a local effort by a group of citizens
to fight political manipulation and dishonesty in
local judicial elections has become the impetus for
a national organization.
In 1989, the Ninth Judicial Committee, a grass-roots
group in the Ninth Judicial District of New York
State, just north of New York City, was formed to do
something about a written Deal between the
Democratic and Republican parties trading seven
judgeships over a three-year period. By the Deal,
the parties agreed to “cross-endorse” the same
judicial candidates, effectively disenfranchising
voters of their constitutional right of election --
the major party slates being identical.
The Deal, which also provided for contracted-for
resignations to create new judicial vacancies and a
split of patronage, was thereafter implemented at
judicial nominating conventions that violated the
most basic Election Law safeguards. The Governor,
the State Board of Elections, the State Commission
on Judicial Conduct, and bar associations refused to
investigate.
Consequently, in 1990, the Ninth Judicial Committee
spearheaded litigation to challenge the Deal and the
judicial nominating conventions. The litigation was
dumped by the courts in decisions which violated
fundamental legal standards and falsified the
factual record.
In the ensuing years, the Ninth Judicial Committee
worked tirelessly to expose the political corruption
of judicial elections in New York, as well as of the
so-called “merit selection” of judges to New York’s
highest court. In that connection, in 1993, we twice
testified before the State Senate Judiciary
Committee.
The Ninth Judicial Committee also undertook a
ground-breaking six-month investigation of the
federal judicial nominations process. Our
fully-documented study, submitted to the U.S. Senate
in 1992, established the deficiencies of the
screening process upon which the President makes his
nominations of our lifetime federal judges. In 1993,
we presented that study and other documentary
evidence to the National Commission on Judicial
Discipline and Removal to refute its
methodologically-flawed report as to the adequacy of
existing mechanisms for disciplining federal judges.
By 1993, the Ninth Judicial Committee, having far
transcended its local origins, inspired the
formation of the Center for Judicial Accountability
(CJA), which became formally incorporated in 1994.
CJA’s activities have built upon and expanded the
Ninth Judicial Committee’s work, further documenting
the political manipulation of judicial selection on
local, state, and federal levels, and the
dysfunction and corruption of the disciplinary
mechanisms. Based upon analysis and study of our
ever-growing bank of empirical data, we have
testified and made evidentiary presentations as to
the need for major reform.
On the federal level, we testified before the Long
Range Planning Committee of the U.S. Judicial
Conference in 1994; before the Second Circuit Task
Force on Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Fairness in the
Courts in 1995; and, in 1996, presented evidence to
the U.S. Senate that its Judiciary Committee
conceals the unfitness of the judicial nominees it
is confirming by refusing to investigate credible
evidence, then holding sham confirmation hearings at
which the public is not permitted to testify. Over
the years, we have filed and collected copies of
filed judicial misconduct complaints against federal
judges, documenting how the federal judiciary, which
controls the disciplinary mechanism against federal
judges, uses it to cover up, rather than
investigate, legitimate complaints. In 1998, we
testified before the Commission on Structural
Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals and
made a formal presentation to the House Judiciary
Committee to remove the disciplining of federal
judges from the federal judiciary, based on
evidentiary proof that the federal judiciary has
used the confidentiality of its procedures to
conceal its unlawful dismissals, without
investigation, of legitimate misconduct complaints
against federal judges.
CJA’s activities in New York State are no less
extensive and far-reaching. They include two
lawsuits against the State Commission on Judicial
Conduct in 1995 and 1999, challenging it with
subverting its statutory duty to investigate
legitimate judicial misconduct complaints. Both
lawsuits were dumped by the courts in dishonest and
fraudulent decisions -- a modus operandi of
judges in cases involving judicial self-interest.
