The Judicial Ethics Forum (JEF)

Although admittedly not hot-off-the-press, the following two judicial ethics works deserve highlighting (even belatedly):

First, for an impressive descriptive study of judicial disqualification appeals from 1980 to 2007, see Sande L. Buhai, Federal Judicial Disqualification: A Behavioral and Quantitative Analysis, 90 Or. L. Rev. 69 (2011) (noting, among other interesting things, the “surprising” failure of certain district court judges to recuse themselves despite relatively clear and objective grounds compelling their recusal).

Second, for a strong jurisprudential inquiry into impartiality, the relevant differences between civil and common law judges, the nature of adjudication and law, and the justification for positive legal restrictions on judges’ conduct, see W. Bradley Wendel, Impartiality in Judicial Ethics: A Jurisprudential Analysis, 22 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol’y 305 (2008).