The 92-year-old, possibly demented, much criticized, reversed and taken off cases for bizarre behavior federal judge Milton Shadur is still on the bench - why?

I wrote previously on this blog about a civil rights lawsuit of an African American dismissed - and recently reinstated - because of improper conduct of a 92-year-old judge Milton Shadur.

This is the continued analysis of the failure of the federal judicial system to address judicial misconduct, and especially misconduct of judges so old that their conduct appear clearly demented.

The judge who improperly dismissed the civil rights case for excessive use of force by an African American civil rights plaintiffs, the 92-year-old U.S. District Court Judge Milton Shadur, remains on the bench despite his continued misconduct and bizarre and incompetent behavior.

In this blog, I will cover the relentless pursuit by Judge Shadur of this African-American civil rights plaintiff, without any legal grounds, and apparently on the basis of the judge's personal racial bias.

That judge Shadur is cantankerous and "does not like to keep waiting", and likes to bash criminal defense attorneys - and now civil rights plaintiffs - is well known.

In July of 2015 Judge Shadur sanctioned a criminal defense attorney $200 because the judge disliked the contents of the attorney's legal argument.   That happened one month after the U.S. Supreme Court decided Reed v Town of Gilbert, requiring strict scrutiny for content-based regulation of speech by the government, and sanctions for content of a criminal defense attorney's speech is the ultimate content-based regulation.

Judge Shadur did not care about the 1st Amendment - and, obviously, the Above the Law blog did not, either, since the obvious unconstitutionality of that order was not pointed out while reporting the order of sanctions.  The report just said that Judge Shadur "does not like to keep waiting".

That would be an "F" to Judge Shadur and "Above the Law" author for knowledge of applicable law.

In the same July 2015, Judge Shadur imposed yet another $200 fee against a lawyer, with another "F" cast by the judge against the lawyer - while the "F" squarely belonged to the judge himself. 

In his 4-page decision the judge legislates from the bench, amending the notice pleading related only to claims by plaintiffs, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8, to now apply to defendants, and applies to defendants two federal cases, Twombly and Iqbal, addressed to sufficiency of plaintiffs' claims only.

Judge Shadur also established a rule that a hard copy of anything electronically filed should be delivered to his office on the day of filing, which is one day before the Local Rules require such delivery - so Judge Shadur obviously considers himself with authorities to change Local Rules of the court without public notice, comment or input.

Actually, Judge Shadur was thrown off a sex discrimination case by an appellate court in 2014 for his "tone of derision" alone - and yet Judge Shadur continued with the same while imposing his sanctions against attorneys in July of 2015.

And, in 2010 the same appellate court has ruled, removing Judge Shadur from a criminal case:

"The cascade of errors and omissions that we have identified cannot be dismissed as harmless, and so requires that the defendant be resentenced.

And in fairness to the government, which is entitled to the same consideration as other litigants, the resentencing should be by a different judge."

"One cannot read the 168-page transcript of the sentencing hearing, and the two memoranda attempting to justify the sentence that the judge issued after he had announced the sentence at the conclusion of the hearing, without sensing that the judge had committed himself irrevocably to a noncustodial sentence for the defendant".

The judge was "committed" to a "noncustodial sentence", in disregard of sentencing guidelines, in other words, the judge did not want to send the convicted criminal to prison - because of who the convicted criminal was, and that was Edward Vrodlyak, the "judicial kingmaker" who had long-time connections with Judge Shadur.

The prosecution asked for 41 months (that's nearly 3.5 years) in prison, in the case of public fraud against a prominent former Chicago Alderman - and Judge Shadur gave Vrodlyak no prison sentence at all, instead sentencing Vrodlyak to five years of probation, a $50,000 fine and 2,500 hours of community service - and was reversed and taken off the case for it.

On remand Vrodlyak was sentenced to 10 months in prison by another judge and was released on probation in November of 2011.

Then, Edward Vrodlyak was released from home imprisonment months early, by judge Matthew Kennelly.

In 2014, Judge Shadur removed himself from Michael Jordan's lawsuit after inappropriately pressuring Michael Jordan to lower his damages claim - and doing it in an insulting manner,  calling Michael Jordan "greedy," and likening him to a "hog" who would "get slaughtered".

In 2011, Judge Shadur issued a decision regarding a civil rights plaintiff who was an inmate, and who Judge Shadur thought was subject to the so-called Prisoner Litigation Reform Act, of 1995, PLRA.

I wrote on this blog about PLRA, and its unconstitutional restriction of civil rights litigation and access to courts by inmates.

PLRA substantially contributed to the human rights crisis that is ongoing in U.S. prisons at this time.

Yet, PLRA applies to "prisoners" - which means, the person subject to PLRA must be first convicted, so that the judge would engage in pre-screening review required by PLRA.

In 2011, Judge Shadur, as I stated above, engaged in such a pre-screening review and criticized the procedure created by PLRA as putting an undue burden upon the court, where courts lacked resources, including personnel, to handle the requirements of PLRA as to prescreening of prisoners' civil rights cases.

(The case referenced in the article, actually was brought by another plaintiff, a Rafael Sanders, not Maurice Sanders, was not decided by Judge Shadur, and did not involve a PLRA analysis).

Judge Shadur, in his younger years, was actually the judge who ordered release of the so-called "Goldstone report" in the Chicago torture scandal by the police.

And, in 1997 Judge Shadur voiced a very reasonable criticism of the U.S. Supreme Court "baseline test" as to conditions of confinement:

And, only back in 2002, Judge Shadur criticized the automatic invocation of "qualified immunity" by police officers in civil rights cases:

Yet, in the Fenton case, a case where the litigated events occurred during the chase and arrest of a person not convicted of any crime - and thus not subject to PLRA - Judge Shadur went out of his way

1. Applying PLRA - which did not apply;
2. Assessing illegal fees against the civil rights plaintiff, who was at that point a pre-trial detainee, not a convicted prisoner, and whose lawsuit addressed not prison conditions, but excessive force during arrest; and
3. Raiding the pro se plaintiff's commissary account in pre-trial detention - apparently, Judge Shadur had time and resources for that.

It is, probably, not even necessary to mention that the civil rights plaintiff in question was African American, and that judge Shadur is white.

Joseph Fenton's lawsuit arose from a police chase and military-style apprehension efforts in Illinois in 2014 with attempted murder of a woman and a child in the State of Georgia, and had a bench warrant for his arrest from the State of Georgia.

Joseph Fenton waived extradition and was taken to the State of Georgia for trial, and his civil rights lawsuit was filed at the time of his pre-trial detention.

There were obvious facts pointing to excessive force during arrest in the plaintiff's complaint (such as the use of a flash-bang grenade during the apprehension that led to multiple injuries of the plaintiff), which should have been addressed at the very least by an Answer by the defendants or a defendant's motion to dismiss, and ultimately by the jury, if such a motion would be denied.

Judge Shadur, however, did not allow the case to proceed based on the non-applicable PLRA.

Here are some excerpts from Judge Shadur's decision that the the appellate court decision reversed :

"Smell test", "serious doubt" as to credibility - all of that is for the jury, and a judge reading a pleading MUST PRESUME the truth of factual pleadings.  That's the law.

I will provide excerpts from Judge Shadur's orders harassing Joseph Fenton and trying to get every last penny from his commissary, under the inapplicable PLRA, for court fees for allegedly frivolous conduct - which was also overruled by the appellate court.

At this time, I can only ask a question - what happened to Judge Shadur?

Is he all right upstairs?

He appears to turn from a fairly reasonable jurist, towards age 90, into a cantankerous tyrant who would not follow the law and instead creates some chases - against lawyers across the specter (civil attorneys, and even government prosecutors) and pro se litigants - while completely disregarding applicable law.

Maybe, there is a point to introduce an age limit for federal judges?

So that there is no question whether a certain ruling is made in sound mind, and is not a product of dementia?