It seems the critics of U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon — and by critics, I mean those who simply cannot abide the fact that she’s issued some rulings that benefit former President Donald Trump in the classified documents case she’s overseeing — have been busy. Quite busy. So busy that they’ve prompted the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to say, “No mas!”
The appellate court actually issued its order regarding the boatloads of complaints it’s been fielding on May 22nd. In the order, Chief Judge William Pryor notes that multiple complaints were filed against Judge Cannon before May 16th and that some of those have been acted upon or “will be acted upon in due course.” (No specifics are offered as to the nature of those complaints or what action was taken or may be contemplated.)
However, since May 16th, “the Clerk of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has received over 1,000 judicial complaints against Judge Cannon that raise allegations that are substantially similar to the allegations raised in previous complaints.” As Pryor explains in the order, some of the relief sought in the complaints includes the removal of Cannon from the case and its reassignment to another judge, which neither Pryor nor the Judicial Council have the authority to do.
More importantly, the court notes that the complaints “appear to be part of an orchestrated campaign” and, as such, will be handled under Judicial-Conduct Rule 10(b), which provides:
Orchestrated Complaints. When many essentially identical complaints from different complainants are received and appear to be part of an orchestrated campaign, the chief Judge may recommend that the Judicial council issue a written order instructing the circuit clerk to accept only a certain number of such complaints for filing and to refuse to accept additional complaints. The circuit clerk must send a copy of any such order to anyone whose complaint was not accepted.
Due to the sheer volume of the complaints, Pryor deemed the situation exceptional and ordered the clerk to post the order to the website rather than attempting to send a copy to each complainant.
Pryor also notes that four of the complaints received since May 16th have been considered and dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence of any misconduct.
While this does not mean that zero additional complaints will be considered, any that are similar to the previously filed complaints will not be. In other words, if one hopes to have a complaint considered and acted upon, one best have the proper receipts. And if one doesn’t, well, one might be facing their own set of consequences…
Nothing Judge Cannon has done is judicial misconduct.
Falsely accusing a judge of misconduct & encouraging others to do so IS misconduct by a lawyer, however, in most jurisdictions. https://t.co/1XkamM2Euf
— Leslie McAdoo Gordon 🇺🇸 (@McAdooGordon) May 12, 2024
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