Judges and Judiciary
Aug. 16, 2002
Hubris Destroys Judicial Careers
SAN FRANCISCO - Are judges, accustomed to sitting in judgment of others, loath to admit their own culpability when faced with charges of wrongdoing?
Does the dreaded "black robe disease" render them too imperious to admit that fixing tickets, lying about their backgrounds or using sick leave to attend Caribbean medical schools is wrong?
A look at the three judges whose misconduct warranted removal by the Commission on Judicial Performance over the last 15 months offers insight into how judges react when the tables are turned and they are forced to explain their own misdeeds. Although the charges in each case varied, one common trait, perhaps leading to their ultimate downfall, was a stubborn refusal by the judges to take responsibility for their transgressions.
Perhaps the most egregious, if not outlandish, case involved former Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patrick Murphy, who called in sick a mind-boggling 412 days in five years. After deciding he'd rather be a chiropractor, Murphy attended a medical school in the West Indies, and "Murphy sightings" at local restaurants and social events became a running joke within the legal community - all while the jurist was on sick leave and collecting his $133,000 judicial salary. Declining to acknowledge what the commission called "reprehensible" behavior, Murphy instead blamed an escalating spiral of physical and mental ailments for his prolonged absences, including his strangely ironic assertion that he'd actually developed a phobia about courtrooms. Sensing his impending doom, he resigned from the bench a few days before the commission ordered his ouster in May 2001, citing "serious health problems."
Perhaps the most tragic was another Los Angeles jurist, Patrick Couwenberg, whose essential fault seemed to be hubris, a man who lied not for personal gain but for personal aggrandizement. His untruths stretched from the mundane - embellishing his academic and professional background - to the mortifying - claims of receiving a Purple Heart - to the bizarre - assertions that he had worked as a CIA spy who delivered munitions to Scandinavian mercenaries in Thailand. His defense was that he suffered from "pseudologica fantastica," a psychological term for pathological lying, the result of a traumatic childhood in war-torn Indonesia.
But when Couwenberg, praised by many attorneys as a good judge, was confronted during hearings by evidence of his repeated lies, he sometimes seemed bewildered by his own behavior. "I just don't know why I did it" was his plaintive response.
Early on during his disciplinary hearings, it appeared that if only Couwenberg would admit that his fabrications were simply a foolish attempt to impress, the commission would punish him with an admonishment but allow him to salvage his judgeship. But his intransigence proved to be a fatal flaw: Besides losing his robes, he was stripped of his law license in August 2001.
"Judges are human beings," observed Couwenberg's Long Beach attorney, Edward P. George Jr., who served on the commission in 1990-1995 and now represents judges before the watchdog agency. "They have the same foibles."
The most recent expulsion was that of San Joaquin Superior Court Judge Michael Platt, who lost his seat earlier this month for interceding in friends' cases and for what the commission termed the "quintessential bad act of a judge": fixing traffic tickets.
A highly decorated Vietnam War veteran, Platt angered commissioners by his adamant, defiant assertions that his actions were not unethical, even though he had had citations dismissed for people to whom he owed money. Declaring to commissioners that he took "exception to the issue of deception," Platt tried to trivialize his misconduct.
"I know what I did was wrong, but I did a lot of good things on the bench," he offered by way of mitigation.
By the time he pleaded for "anything but removal," it was too late. His contrition appeared to be a pathetic last-ditch attempt to salvage a judgeship he realized was slipping away. Commissioners sat stone-faced as Platt said he would rather have died in Vietnam or from a recent heart attack than lose his gavel.
Other jurists, more prudently, have been able to keep their robes and minimize the repercussions by acknowledging and apologizing for their offensive behavior.
For example, Placer County Superior Court Judge W. Jackson Willoughby III survived removal - six commissioners voted for censure; four for removal - for grabbing his bailiff's breasts after he remorsefully admitted to "probably the biggest mistake of my life."
Willoughby's attorney, Michael Sands of Sacramento, said the jurist's willingness to recognize his misconduct undoubtedly helped.
"The fact that he acknowledged wrongdoing right from the very beginning may have carried weight with the commission," he said. "They may feel he's more salvageable."
San Francisco attorney Ephraim Margolin, who has represented about 140 judges facing misconduct charges, says that except for perhaps being more educated, jurists are no different from other clients in the way they respond to accusations.
"They go through hell. Their self-esteem depends on the view of who they are; they're mortified," he explained. "Many will admit they did something wrong and want to get it over as quickly as possible. There are judges who are thinking about resigning or doing something else, and this may be the thing that puts them over the line. Others cannot conceive of life without being a judge."
Donna Domino
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