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Judge Kent’s Apparent Effort to Collect Retirement Pay Meets a Roadblock

Posted May 27, 2009 12:56 PM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

The judicial council for the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has dealt a blow to Judge Samuel Kent’s apparent efforts to collect retirement pay after his admission of nonconsensual contact with two court employees.

The 5th Circuit Judicial Council has recommended impeachment, the Houston Chronicle reports, and the circuit’s chief judge has rejected Kent’s request to be certified as disabled. Kent was sentenced to 33 months in prison earlier this month after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice in a plea bargain.

Kent would be too young to retire, but his disability claim could have allowed him to qualify for pay and benefits as a senior judge. Chief Judge Edith Jones noted Kent’s battle with diabetes, depression and alcoholism, but said in a letter posted today that he was ineligible for disability status, the story says.

“Kent has forfeited his claim to such status by pleading guilty to a felony, an impeachable offense,” Jones wrote in the letter. “Further, the interpretation [of federal law] must be influenced by public policy that a claimant should not profit from his own wrongdoing by engaging in criminal misconduct and then collecting a federal retirement salary.”

Two lawmakers have already filed a resolution calling for an investigation that could lead to impeachment.

Hat tip to How Appealing.

Comments

1.

Gary L. Zerman
May 29, 2009 2:45 PM CST

There now must be an independent investigation of those judges on the Judicial Council who earlier gave Kent a free pass on his earlier transgressions, that kept such secret, misled the publiic and enablied Kent to believe he could continue such bad behavior (and assault/abuse another female staff member) and continue to get away with another slap on the wrist.  Clearly this process is corrupt, bankrupt and illusory and protects bad judges, instead of the public, as Kent, and stats for the 5th Circuit (and across the entire nation) show for year-in-year-out, that not one complaint of misconduct against a judge resulted in public discipline..  (See also “WITHOUT MERIT:  The Empty Promise of Judcicial Discipline” (1997)  Vol. 4, No. 1, Maas. School of Law, The Long Term View, pg. 90 by Elena Sassower and The Center for Judicial Accountability’s “Critique of The Breyer Report” at www.judgewatch.org - left side-bar, that concludes that “The Breyer Report” is a FRAUD.)  That investigation must be made public and those judges must disciplined if warranted.

As stated by Justice Kozinski (9th Crcuit), in his dissent (pg. 32) of the dismissal (3rd time) of the misconduct complaint against USDC Judge Manuel Real (another long-time problem judge, but worse than Kent), In re Complaint of Judicial Misconduct, No. 03-89037, Order 9/27/05 (Judicial Council of the 9th Circuit) - where Real was found, even by the majority, to have inervened and taken a case without any legal authority/basis:  “... It does not inspire confidence in the federal judiciary when we treat our own so much better that we treat everybody else.”  BINGO!

Search USDC judges Nottingham and Porteous and see further recent failures of the federal judiciaary to properly discipline “their own” and again disregard the public and the public trust.

Judicial Independence ( a myth, because all three (3) branches are supposed to co-equal and independent via the doctrine of separation of powers, thus the actual concern about the judiciary, should be with judicial impartiality) must be replaced with judicial accountability.

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