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WASHINGTON (AP) - A law firm filed ethics violation charges
Monday against three federal judges who sit on the governing
board of an organization that favors business based solutions
to environmental issues. Community Rights Counsel, or CRC,
alleged that the judges' service on the board of the Foundation
for Research on Economics and the Environment created an appearance
of impropriety.
The judges include Douglas Ginsburg, chief judge of the
Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, who
served on the board with Edward Warren, an oil industry lawyer
fighting an air pollution case being considered
by Ginsburg's court. Ginsburg eventually co wrote the 1999
ruling striking down a portion of the Clean Air Act.
"Participating on FREE's board gave Warren the opportunity
to spend days at a time with Chief Judge Ginsburg at Montana
resorts with a very small group of other board members,"
CRC wrote.
Warren also lectured to judges at FREE seminars while the
case was pending.
Ginsburg knew that his service with Warren on the FREE board
would raise questions about his impartiality, but he did not
recuse himself, CRC said. The Supreme Court reversed the appeals
court ruling in American Trucking
Associations v. EPA.
Ginsburg's co author in that case, Circuit Judge Stephen
Williams, participated with Ginsburg in a FREE seminar while
the case was pending, CRC said in a report that used judges'
financial disclosure forms and tax records from FREE.
A call to Ginsburg's chambers was referred to the court
clerk's office, where Deputy Clerk Marilyn Sargeant declined
to comment.
Ginsburg is a Republican appointee, as are the other two
jurists on the FREE board, 6th Circuit Chief Judge Danny Boggs
and 3rd Circuit Judge Jane Roth.
"There is pretty unmistakable evidence that the organization
that hosts environmental junkets for judges where they talk
about how and why federal judges should strike down environmental
regulations appears to be manipulating
their board structure and (conference) schedule to influence
the outcome of important environmental cases," CRC Executive
Director Doug Kendall said.
Roth and Boggs did not immediately return calls placed to
their chambers.
Judges are allowed to join or help lead organizations "devoted
to the improvement of the law, the legal system, or the administration
of justice," their ethics guide says. Judges must largely
determine for themselves whether a
given organization fits that description.
In most cases, ethics complaints against judges do not result
in any discipline or penalty.
CRC's Kendall said his organization only wants the judges
to step down from the FREE board.
The nonprofit FREE, based in Bozeman, Mont., receives most
of its money from corporations or from corporate associated
or conservative ideological foundations. FREE runs seminars
for federal judges, law professors and
others, usually at Western resorts.
"While our seminars are explicitly pro environment,
they explain why ecological values are not the only important
ones," a statement on the group's Web site says. "We
stress that trade offs among competing values are inescapable.
We show why it is ethically and materially irresponsible to
pretend such choices can be avoided."
Efforts to reach FREE founder and Chairman John A. Baden
for comment on the CRC report and the ethics complaints were
unsuccessful.
A 2000 CRC report said 22 federal judges took trips underwritten
by major corporations and failed to list the trips on financial
disclosure forms, as required by law.
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On the Net:
Community Rights Counsel report: http:// www.communityrights.org/TaintedJustice/main.asp
Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment
site: http:// www.free eco.org/staff.
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