By Gabe Roth

This is just in: the judicial misconduct complaint identified by Federal Circuit Chief Judge Kimberly Moore in March 2023 against Judge Pauline Newman has, at long last, been transferred out of the Federal Circuit and to the Eleventh Circuit.

This action — i.e., moving its review out of the home circuit to one of the 12 other federal appeals courts — is something Fix the Court has been calling on for years.

Judges shouldn’t be judging the behavior of fellow judges they work down the hall from. It’s a clear conflict.

The fact that Chief Judge Moore didn’t ask for a transfer soon after she identified the complaint is largely what led to our involvement in this issue: this is the only complaint against a circuit judge that survived initial review in history where the chief judge didn’t request a transfer from the Chief Justice.

We were proud to work with judicial ethics experts and Rep. Scott Fitzgerald’s team on his Judicial Conduct and Disability Reform Act, introduced last month, which would require a chief circuit judge to ask the Chief Justice for a transfer for all complaints against circuit judges that survive initial review. (More on the bill here.)

The question remains whether Chief Justice Roberts or someone else in the judicial firmament pressured Chief Judge Moore to request a transfer after three year-plus years.

We may never learn how it unfolded, but we’re grateful it finally did.