Released: September 20, 2006

Increased accountability for federal judges

Source: By Linda Greenhouse, New York Times (Free Registration)

The federal judiciary’s top leadership responded Tuesday to criticism from Congress and elsewhere about asserted lapses in judicial ethics by announcing several steps aimed at enhanced self-policing and greater public accountability.

All federal judges below the Supreme Court level will be required to install “conflict checking” software on their computers to avoid unwittingly participating in cases in which they have a financial interest. Such software has recently become available but is not being used widely by federal judges, said Judge Thomas F. Hogan, who leads the executive committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, which took the action at its semiannual meeting at the Supreme Court.

The conference, a group of 27 judges led by the chief justice of the United States, sets policy for the federal courts, but its jurisdiction does not extend to the Supreme Court.

The conference also adopted a policy on the attendance by federal judges at educational seminars sponsored by outside groups, the source of considerable controversy in recent years.

Judges will be prohibited from accepting reimbursement for attending a private seminar unless its sponsor has filed a public disclosure statement on the content of the program and all sources of financing.

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