By Manny Marotta, FTC law clerk

At the beginning of September, Fix the Court contacted three states whose judicial financial disclosure requirements either mandate or allow filers to list their residential addresses.

We urged these states to amend their reporting rules to align with federal guidelines (see p. 42 of this PDF), which explicitly instruct judges not to disclose their home addresses in any context.

One state’s courts administrator, Nebraska’s, responded: “We have worked to address the issue so judges will not put their residence on the financial disclosure forms.”

Fix the Court welcomes this response, and we’ve reached out to the other two states to encourage them to follow Nebraska’s lead and amend their disclosure instructions.

Recent legislation, like federal and state versions of Daniel’s Law, are also working to increase judicial safety by, among other measures, scrubbing judges’ home addresses from the Internet.

We strongly urge every state that still requires the disclosure of residential addresses on judicial forms to amend their reporting guidelines in order to better protect judicial safety and independence.