Judicial Disciplinary Commissions: Alternatives to Impeachment

摘要

Fifty-one jurisdictions, including forty-eight states, have established commissions on judicial conduct in response to the failure of impeachment to hold judges adequately accountable for misconduct. This report assesses the states' experience with commissions on judicial conduct as alternatives to impeachment and the applicability of these alternatives to the federal judicial system. The data for this report comprise case studies of three state commission systems (North Carolina, New York, and Massachusetts), questionnaires to judges in those three states, questionnaires to executive secretaries and commissioners in over forty states, reported court cases, and law review literature.