U.S. District Court docket Decide Roger T. Benitez, a high-profile jurist recognized for putting down California gun management measures, was reprimanded for judicial misconduct on Wednesday for a 2023 incident by which he ordered the 13-year-old daughter of a drug defendant to be handcuffed in open courtroom — regardless of the lady not being accused of any crimes.
The choice doesn’t take away Benitez from the bench or disqualify him from presiding over high-profile civil circumstances — together with potential future litigation over state gun legal guidelines — however does restrict his function in felony issues. Benitez has denied any wrongdoing.
The uncommon reprimand of a sitting federal choose got here after attorneys for the lady’s father complained, prompting an investigation and a evaluation by the Judicial Council of the U.S. ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals, a panel of high-ranking judges who oversee federal courts throughout the American West.
The council present in its order Wednesday that Benitez’s actions have been “abusive and harassing,” exceeded his authority and undermined “public confidence within the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”
“First, the shackling of a spectator at a listening to who shouldn’t be engaged in threatening or disorderly conduct exceeds the authority of a district choose,” the panel wrote. “Second, making a spectacle out of a minor little one within the courtroom chills the will of mates, members of the family, and members of the general public to assist family members at sentencing.”
The panel famous that Benitez maintained he did nothing fallacious all through the investigation, arguing that he was appearing with the “greatest intentions” for the lady after her father lamented that she was heading down the fallacious path, together with by experimenting with medicine.
Benitez ordered a courtroom bailiff to handcuff the lady in what some witnesses described as a “scared straight” tactic, the panel discovered. The lady was decreased to tears.
The panel rejected all of Benitez’s arguments for why his actions have been justified — calling them “not persuasive” — and criticized him for making an attempt to position blame for the incident on others, together with the general public defenders who complained. It additionally rejected a declare from Benitez that the investigation was pushed by “public strain.”
The panel discovered no misconduct in a second matter earlier than them, by which Benitez had addressed one other defendant’s little one from the bench.
Benitez holds “senior standing,” that means he had already relinquished some duties as a choose however nonetheless hears circumstances, and had already declined to take new felony circumstances, in response to the panel’s order.
The panel nonetheless ordered that Benitez obtain solely non-criminal circumstances for the following three years. Throughout that very same time-frame, felony defendants with sure sentencing issues earlier than Benitez might request his recusal, it stated.
A number of main choices by Benitez in civil gun circumstances are at the moment pending on attraction earlier than the ninth Circuit — together with choices by which he overturned as unconstitutional California’s ban on assault weapons and its ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines.
