Judges: How to Remove Them

In his 22 years on the bench, Oklahoma's U.S. District Court Judge Stephen S. Chandler, 65, earned a distinguished reputation as a specialist on streamlining the courts. His long experience won him a place on an American Bar Association committee set up to study the problem of removing "aged, ill or otherwise infirm" judges who, despite their disability, cling to their office. But in December, when the judges of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals met to devise a method to dispense with the services of a judge, they did not ask Chandler's advice. It was Chandler himself whom they sought to bar from exercising his judicial duties.

The court was all too well aware that it faced a ticklish problem. Under the U.S. Constitution, federal judges are named to serve "during good behavior," which in effect means for life. They can only be removed by the cumbersome method of impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate—which has resulted in the removal of only four judges since 1789.

Poisoned Water. To get around this clear constitutional requirement, Chandler's colleagues, who comprise the Judicial Council of the Tenth Circuit, did not remove him. They simply declared him "presently unwilling or unable" to discharge the duties of his office and barred him from hearing any more cases. They let him keep his title, his chambers, and his $30,000 salary. Their ruling, the judges explained, was based on a 1948 statute that gave the Judicial Councils of the Circuit Courts of Appeals the power to issue "orders for the effective administration" of the U.S. District Courts.

The Tenth Circuit judges gave no precise reason for their unprecedented action. But transcripts of Judge Chandler's court show that he was twice deprived of jurisdiction in cases. The Appeals Court ruled in one of these cases that Chandler showed "personal enmity, hostility, and prejudice" toward the executives of the Occidental Petroleum Co., calling them collectively "shady characters, pirates, vultures," and had singled out one of them as a "son of a bitch." He had accused a fellow U.S. District Court judge of "spitting in my face," and expressed fear that the water in his carafe was poisoned.

Due Process. Chandler appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that the Judicial Council had usurped Congress' authority to remove judges and had denied him due process by not giving him a hearing. Fortnight ago, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay the Judicial Council's "temporary" order, with the understanding that Chandler would be granted a hearing. In an angry minority dissent Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas found that the Judicial Council had, nonetheless, effectively "removed" Judge Chandler from his office. "The council," said the dissenters, "is completely without legal authority to issue any such order, no statute purports to authorize it, and the Constitution forbids it."