U.S. Appeals Judge Accused Of Racial Bias Over Speech

A group of civil rights organizations and legal ethicists filed a complaint of misconduct against a senior federal judge on Tuesday, alleging that recent remarks of hers showed bias against minority groups and an inappropriate religious belief in the death penalty. 

The complaint, against Judge Edith H. Jones of Houston, who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, asserts that at a speech at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in February she said that blacks and Hispanics were more prone than others to commit violent crimes and that a death sentence was a service to defendants because it allowed them to make peace with God.

The complaint is signed by representatives of, among others, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Mexican Capital Legal Assistance Program and cites a number of people who attended the lecture.

A spokesman for the law school, Steven Barnes, said that the Federalist Society, the conservative group that hosted the speech, did not record it and that there appeared to be no transcript.

A request for comment left with Judge Jones’s chambers in Houston was not immediately answered.

According to the complaint, Judge Jones, 64, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, and who until recently was the chief judge of the Fifth Circuit and mentioned during Republican administrations as a possible Supreme Court nominee, said that “African-Americans and Hispanics are "predisposed to crime" and that defendants facing capital punishment who claim "mental retardation" disgust her.”

The complaint says such statements violated the judicial code’s requirement that a judge be impartial and avoid damaging public confidence in the judiciary.

One of the affidavits accompanying the complaint is from Marc Bookman, a veteran death penalty lawyer in Pennsylvania, who attended the lecture. He quoted Judge Jones as saying, “Sadly, some groups seem to commit more heinous crimes than others.” When asked to elaborate, Judge Jones “noted there was no arguing that ‘blacks’ and ‘Hispanics’ far outnumber ‘Anglos’ on death row and repeated that ‘sadly’ people from these racial groups do get involved in more violent crime,” the affidavit said.

Mr. Bookman said in a telephone interview that when the judge was questioned by angry students, “She defensively backed off what she had said or, at least, what the audience had interpreted it to mean.”

Another affidavit is from James M. McCormack, former chief disciplinary counsel for the Texas bar, who said that based on the complaint, “it is my opinion that Judge Jones violated the ethical standards applicable to federal judges under the Code of Conduct for United States judges.”

Judge Jones is alleged to have said that the defenses often offered in capital cases, including mental retardation and systemic racism, were “red herrings.” She also said, according to the witnesses, that Mexicans would prefer to be on death row in the United States rather than in prison in Mexico.

Charles W. Wolfram, one of the country’s experts in legal ethics who is retired from Cornell Law School, said Judge Jones’s alleged statements were a cause of great concern.

“If I were a parent of a black with borderline IQ accused in a capital case, would I be distressed in knowing that Judge Jones was sitting on my case?” he asked in a telephone interview. “Yes, I would. She seems to have made up her mind on these issues. She is slanted. That is the whole point of the impartiality requirement.”

Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics scholar at New York University, said that if Judge Jones really did say that death penalties serve the condemned by forcing them to face God, that was troubling.

“If a judge were to say that during sentencing, that sentence would be vacated,” he said. “It suggests that she believes she is helping the accused by giving a death sentence. That is totally inappropriate.” He said the central question concerning her alleged statements about race and crime depended heavily on tone and context.

The fate of the complaint now lies with the circuit’s chief judge, Carl E. Stewart of Louisiana, the first black in the job. He could dismiss it, speak privately with Judge Jones or order an investigation and set up a committee of judges either in his circuit or another one. Most complaints against judges, many of which come from inmates, are dismissed.