Posted on 01/05/2007 1:17:48 PM PST by NormsRevenge
A federal judge was removed from a discrimination case against the U.S. Navy by an appellate court that said he committed five abuses of discretion, including preventing an expert witness from testifying.
Los Angeles-based Judge Manuel Real was sitting in Hawaii as a visiting judge when he was reassigned by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Real has appealed the decision to the Judicial Conference of the U.S. in Washington.
He had been hearing a case involving Ronald L. Obrey Jr., a Pearl Harbor shipyard supervisor who contends he was denied promotion because he is part Hawaiian.
In its Dec. 26 ruling, the three-member appellate court said Real showed "apparent unwillingness" to follow a ruling it made last year that ordered him to admit certain testimony and statistics into the case.
The appeals court also said Real refused to allow live rather than written testimony from three of Obrey's witnesses, who claimed they had been passed over for shipyard jobs because of their race.
Real's actions "were prejudicial to Obrey," the 9th Circuit panel said, adding that "the trial would have been quite different had these significant errors not been made."
The ruling will give Obrey another chance to prove his claims.
The 9th Circuit's action is not unprecedented. In 1986, the court reassigned a long-running contentious case involving Sears that Real had been hearing, and in 2005 it stripped the judge of a case involving chemical giant E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.
In each instance, the 9th Circuit said it acted to "preserve the appearance of justice."
The decision on the current case came six weeks after a disciplinary panel of the court voted to publicly reprimand Real for improperly seizing control of a bankruptcy case involving a defendant whose probation he was supervising.
A congressional subcommittee has called for a hearing on a resolution to consider Real's possible impeachment. No action has been taken on the proposal.
Get Real.. and they did.
An LBJ appointee seriously needing a real vacation in Hawaii, and not just as a visiting Judge.
The clown should have probably been "retired."
Sounds like Real erred in favor of the US.
Unfortunately you can't force a federal judge to retire. They are appointed for life. Real has been a pain in the ass for years. What they should do is simply not assign any cases to him. He'll continue to sit and get paid, but he at least won't be in a position to screw anything up.
We need to "preserve the appearance of justice" or people will wise up to our partisan tactics.
Not entirely true as federal judges can be impeached and removed from the bench. You know, like Alcee Hastings.
Alcee Hastings was impeached for bribery. He was acquitted of the crime in criminal court, but impeachment by Congress is not dependent on a criminal conviction. Once articles of impeachment are approved by the House, the impeached judge is tried in the Senate and, if convicted, is removed from office.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.