Chief Judge Pryor's Non-Order in the Eleanor Ross Judicial Misconduct Proceedings: Why It Is So Problematic and What Might Be Done About It

I have written quite a bit about Judge Ross’s extrajudicial activities. I’ve also written how the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Council, and Chief Judge Pryor in particular, have handled this issue. Last Friday, I raised some questions about how Judge Pryor addressed Judge Ross’s apology letter:

How does Chief Judge Pryor have this authority? Did the other (unnamed) members of the Council agree to this plan? Moreover, it seems that Pryor decided not to investigate Ross further based on her making her private reprimand into a public reprimand. How does he have that authority? Judge Ross would have never consented to any reprimand if it was public. Judge Pryor nullified the cornerstone of the Judicial Council’s agreement with Judge Ross.

I am thankful that Professor Arthur Hellman addresses some of these questions in the following guest post.

–

The judicial misconduct proceedings involving Federal District Judge Eleanor Ross of Atlanta continue to generate controversy, much of it fueled by a blockbuster expose published by the New York Times on June 11. In this guest post I’ll flag seven (mostly) procedural irregularities and suggest what might be done to clean up the mess that the proceedings have become. These points may seem technical, and to some extent they are, but many of them concern a basic question: who decides? The post assumes general familiarity with prior developments, summarized in the Times story.

A. Bypassing the Judicial Council

The Feb. 11, 2026, order of the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Council (incorporating the findings and recommendations of the Council’s Special Committee, which investigated the matter) stated: “Any apology [issued in connection with the sanction] should be sufficiently specific so as to make clear to the recipient the sexual misconduct for which the judge is apologizing.” That order was made public on May 22, when the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States (JC&D Committee) issued its order affirming it.

On June 8, four of Judge Ross’s former law clerks (whose unease about the sexual activity taking place in the judge’s chambers led to the initial complaint) wrote to the Judicial Council stating that they did not believe that the three-sentence apology letters they had received complied with the provision just quoted. The law clerks’ letter went to Chief Judge William Pryor, who wrote to Judge Ross on June 10 asking her to respond to the “allegations.” He specifically asked her to “state whether [she] failed to send adequate letters of apology to [her] former law clerks.” He implied that if her response was not satisfactory, she might be subject to more severe discipline than the private reprimand she had received. He gave her a deadline of June 12.

On June 11, Judge Ross sent new letters to the law clerks and informed Judge Pryor of her action. Judge Pryor responded with a second letter, also on June 11, saying, in effect, that he would take no further action against Judge Ross. With Judge Ross’s consent, he disclosed the new apology letters to The New York Times, which published a second story on June 12.

Judge Pryor’s brief letter did not say whether Judge Ross had sent any response other than the new letters. Based on the public record, it is fair to conclude that Judge Ross acknowledged, at least implicitly, that her initial apology letters were not adequate.

The “procedural” problem here is that the apology requirement was part of the sanctions imposed by the Judicial Council – the only entity authorized to impose sanctions under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980 (JCDA). By alerting Judge Ross to the possible inadequacy of the first set of apology letters, Judge Pryor implicitly invited her to write a new set that would be treated as compliant. That is certainly how Judge Ross read the letter. But it seems to me that only the Council could properly determine (a) whether Judge Ross should be given a second chance to comply with the apology provision of the Feb. 11 order and (b) if so, whether the new letters did comply.

The Feb. 11 Judicial Council order determined that a private reprimand was a sufficient sanction, and therefore it did not identify Judge Ross. Chief Judge Pryor’s letters of June 10 and June 11 are the first official acknowledgment that Judge Ross is the “Subject Judge” referred to in the order. Judge Pryor’s two letters have been posted on the Eleventh Circuit website. But the Feb. 11 order remains as it was originally issued, and the Council (as far as we know) has not been given a chance to reconsider its sanction and how it is to be reported. Again, Judge Pryor chose to bypass the Council.

Chief Judge Pryor’s June 11 letter stated that he had decided not to identify a second complaint against Judge Ross. But under the Rules for Judicial-Conduct and Judicial-Disability Proceedings (JC&D Rules) he could, instead, have identified a new complaint and then dismissed it or concluded the proceeding. The Commentary to the JC&D Rules provides (pp. 14-15): “In high-visibility situations, it may be desirable for a chief judge to identify a complaint … (and then, if the circumstances … warrant, dismiss or conclude the identified complaint without appointment of a special committee) in order to assure the public that the allegations have not been ignored.”

That might seem like a distinction without a difference. But it is far from that. Under another provision in the rules (Rule 11(g)(3)), if Judge Pryor had identified a complaint and thereafter issued a final order disposing of it, that order would have been subject to automatic review by the Judicial Council. By sending a letter rather than issuing an order, Judge Pryor bypassed the automatic-review mechanism.

B. Other Concerns

The analysis thus far has explained why Chief Judge Pryor’s June 11 letter made it impossible for the Judicial Council of the Circuit to carry out its statutory role and determine whether Judge Ross had complied with its original order. But that is not the only concern raised by the exchange of letters on June 10 and 11.

As noted above, Judge Pryor’s June 11 letter has been posted on the court of appeals website. That is commendable. But Judge Ross’s second apology letter is not included as an attachment. To be sure, the letter is embedded in the New York Times story of June 12, but that is hardly a substitute for inclusion in an official document.

Judge Pryor’s June 10 letter refers to Judge Ross’s “admission of misconduct” and “expression of remorse” and says that these “informed the discipline imposed by the Circuit Judicial Council.” But the Feb. 11 order quotes no admission of misconduct or expression of remorse, and the June 11 letters address only the “harm” Judge Ross caused to the law clerks. Neither in the Feb. 11 order nor in Judge Ross’s June 11 letter to the law clerks is there any “admission of misconduct” or “expression of remorse” with respect to the harm she has caused to her fellow judges and to the federal judiciary.

I think the Council should have insisted on these broader expressions. In this regard, it is instructive to consider a 2002 proceeding involving a single violation of the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges, not nearly as serious as Judge Ross’s multiple transgressions. (The judge had written to another judge urging leniency in sentencing a criminal defendant.) The judge issued a public letter stating: “For this act, I am exceedingly sorry and sincerely apologize to the Judicial Council and to my fellow judges in the First Circuit.”

I recognize that the Judicial Council could not have required such an apology from Judge Ross without making her identity public. But that only underscores the Council’s error in withholding her identity.

In explaining why the Council decided that the private remand was an adequate sanction, the Feb. 11 order listed three factors, one of which was “the Subject Judge’s otherwise exemplary service to the court.” That was dubious even on the face of the order. The order gave no examples of “exemplary service;” on the contrary, the Committee report said that the Committee “was troubled … by the judge’s own admission of …. a lack of engagement” in civil cases.

But even if the premise of “otherwise exemplary service” was defensible when the Judicial Council filed its order, it lost all credibility on June 11, when the New York Times published the story linked above. The story expanded on the Committee report’s reference to the “lack of engagement” in civil cases, saying: “It was not unusual,” the clerks told the Times, “to go weeks without hearing much from [Judge Ross] except for a brief email – ‘Please docket.’ – a  few minutes after they sent her a draft order.”

The Times story not only undercuts one of the Council’s reasons for giving only a private reprimand; it may also call into question the Council’s decision not to find that Judge Ross’s “lack of engagement” constituted misconduct.

Finally, one sentence in Judge Ross’s second apology letter, mentioned but not quoted in the June 12 New York Times article reporting on the new letters, jumped out at me: “I [apologize] for my false accusation against you.” There it is, as bald as could be: Judge Ross has admitted that she falsely accused a subordinate in order to forestall an investigation of her own misconduct. It can be argued that even a single act of that kind is conduct so lacking in probity that anyone who engages in it is unfit to hold judicial office, and that no apology is sufficient to wipe out the stain on her character.

C. What Can Be Done?

The initial handling of the complaint by the Eleventh Circuit was bad enough. Chief Judge Pryor’s response to the law clerks’ letter has made it worse. What, if anything, can be done about it?

Ordinarily, the most promising channel would be for Chief Judge Pryor to identify a new complaint. But he has told Judge Ross that he will not do that. I can see two other possibilities.

First, “any person” could file a complaint alleging that Judge Ross’s second apology letter did not comply with the Feb. 11 order and thus constituted a failure to cooperate that is itself a form of misconduct. Indeed, the complaint could assert that the initial letters did not comply, and that Judge Pryor had no authority to give Judge Ross a second chance. The complainant could request that the proceeding be transferred to another circuit. And the judges who consider the matter might be able to reconsider some of the allegations of the initial complaint. Something of this sort happened in 2006, when the Special Committee investigating a complaint against District Judge Manuel Real of Los Angeles reopened issues that had been considered in an earlier proceeding.

Second, the JC&D Committee could, sua sponte, reach down to the Judicial Council and direct it to reopen the proceeding in light of the new developments. There is nothing in the statute or the JC&D Rules that explicitly authorizes such a procedure, but, at least arguably, there is nothing that forbids it. (It could be viewed as a form of rehearing or recall of the mandate.)

Taking the initiative in this way could lay the foundation for the Judicial Conference itself to transmit to the House of Representatives, pursuant to section 355 of the Judicial Code, a “determination that consideration of impeachment may be warranted.” Two Members of Congress have already introduced impeachment resolutions (see here and here), but it would be desirable for the Judiciary to play the preparatory role that Congress anticipated when it enacted the JCDA.

The post Chief Judge Pryor’s Non-Order in the Eleanor Ross Judicial Misconduct Proceedings: Why It Is So Problematic and What Might Be Done About It appeared first on Reason.com.

Source: https://reason.com/volokh/2026/06/18/chief-judge-pryors-non-order-in-the-eleanor-ross-judicial-misconduct-proceedings-why-it-is-so-problematic-and-what-might-be-done-about-it/