Courts

Judge Removed After Trying To Beat Prosecutors At Their Own Job, Etc.

Take his gavel away ASAP.

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goodbye farewell lateral partner moveIn theory, judges are cool-headed, impartial public servants who do their jobs. Simple enough, right? Not for Tony R. Mallery! After an extended period of not comporting himself in a judicial manner, California’s Commission on Judicial Performance decided that it was time for him to change careers. From the ABA Journal:

Judge Tony R. Mallery of Lassen County, California, committed 23 acts of willful misconduct and 36 acts of prejudicial misconduct, according to the decision by the California Commission on Judicial Performance…“The misconduct is wide-ranging and reflects either a troubling inability to conform his behavior to appropriate judicial standards or a lack of understanding of what being a judge is and requires or both,” the commission said.

Kudos to the Commission! Someone should get a raise for managing to describe the judge’s zaniness as cleanly as they did. This short list of things Judge Mallery thought were good ideas at the time would be taken for some ham-fisted diatribe on the abuse of power if it appeared on a sitcom. For example:

• Mallery “usurped the role of prosecutors” when he tried to eliminate traditional plea bargaining, citing public outrage over handling of crime in the county. His plan was to offer his own deals to defendants after hearings.

• When speaking to attorneys about plea deals, Mallery indicated that he would base decisions on improper factors, such as public perception and political ramifications. One public defender testified that Mallery asked whether she had heard of Judge Persky, a reference to California Judge Aaron Persky, who was recalled after imposing a lenient rape sentence. Mallery reportedly said Persky is “standing in the unemployment line for a lenient sentence, and I am not going to be in that position.”

Acting as both judge and prosecutor must be what the Commission meant by “an inability to conform his behavior to appropriate judicial standards” or, and I’m paraphrasing here, not get what being a judge demands of you. Prosecutorial discretion is broad, but you’d think most people know that the line stops at being able to make prosecutorial decisions because you have a gavel in your hand. Thankfully, his abuses of power didn’t graduate to threats of force or anything. That would be scary.

• The court’s administrative manager said Mallery wanted to know who was “ratting” on him to ethics investigators and suggested that she could review employee emails “to find out who the ‘mole’ was.” He also reportedly said he would “go postal” if the California Commission on Judicial Performance removed him from office.

Oh yeah, they needed to get him up out of there ages ago. For the unfamiliar, “going postal” harks back to a weird point in time where angered USPS workers would mow down coworkers, cops — hell, whoever was nearby — when they got a little too pissed from doing their jobs. Given Mallery’s prior shenanigans, that’s the type of threat you take seriously.

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As mentioned above, this is just a subset of Mallery’s abuses; it is worth checking out the ABA article for a fuller run down. Congrats to everyone at the courthouse who won’t have to worry about Mallery anymore. For his sake and everyone else’s, it would be best for Mallery to use the time off to consider therapy or ayahuasca to strip the ego from the bottom.

Judge Ordered Removed For ‘Troubling Inability To Conform His Behavior’ To Judicial Standards [ABA Journal]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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