Has the JQC lost its way?

My "retired" colleague Lucy Morgan (hi, Lucy!) has been writing a series of articles about this bizarre story involving the First District Court of Appeal based in Tallahassee. Here is the latest one today.

The gist is that a bunch of judges on that court got fed up with one of their colleagues, whom they described as increasingly erratic and whom they accused, among other things, of having affairs. (Here's a cute little photo that a court clerk took while hanging out with His Honor.)

But it turns out the errant judge has powerful friends. He was cleared by the Judicial Qualifications Commission, the outfit that polices judges in Florida. And instead, the JQC now is pursuing charges against one of the other judges who criticized him -- charges filed by the son of one of those powerful friends.

The last close-up exposure I got to the JQC was when it insisted on pressing blatantly bogus charges against a local judge in Hillsborough County, Gregory Holder. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how that the case was based on anything other than that somebody didn't like him. Maybe that is becoming the standard for disciplining judges in Florida.

Comments

[Jim Johnson]

Howard,

In the Old Days Florida judges arrested each other up in Tallahassee, or fought duels.