When democracy works to oust misbehaving judges - and when it doesn't

I recently described on this blog how a judge handcuffed a young female attorney for making constitutional arguments in court on behalf of her indigent criminal defendant.

I am happy to report that the judge was not re-elected to another term.  Democracy worked - in this case - and the judge was ousted by voters, after media reports of his outrageous misconduct.

That does not mean that the judge should not be also disciplined and forever barred from running for a judicial office or being appointed to a judicial office again.

Unfortunately, democracy does not always work this way.

Even where judges are elected in state elections, the power of the voters to do what they did by ousting the handcuffing judge Hafen, absolutely depends on the decision of third parties whether to run in opposition to the judge voters want to oust.

If the judge is running unopposed - as it happened in the case of the "Stanford rapist"-coddling judge Aaron Persky, the judge is still re-elected, whatever is the position of the majority of voters, because there is no such thing, unfortunately, as a possibility to cast a vote against a candidate that runs unopposed, although, I believe, it is a valid idea to consider

Moreover, federal judges, who hold tremendous power over people's property, constitutional rights and life and death, literally, because there is still death penalty in federal criminal proceedings, and all state death penalty sentences go through federal courts on habeas corpus petitions, are appointed, not elected, and are appointed for life.

Moreover, no matter what they do in cases, they are protected by both the judge-invented absolute judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts, and by the federal Judicial Misconduct and Disability Act that precludes any review of complaints regarding actions of a judge in a court case or related to a court case (even corruption related to a court case).

The remaining avenues are appeal, which most often does not work, because federal appellate court have a policy to review civil rights complaints through summary orders without thorough review and to endorse whatever the district court said, even if the judge in the district court committed misconduct, or impeachment, which is practically impossible to obtain.

In my next blog I will show the power of a federal judge to harass people and do it with what appears to be, as of now, absolute impunity.

Stay tuned.