Earlier this week, I thought the Judge Ross scandal had reached its terminus. Indeed, I had to give Judge Ross credit. She conned her colleagues so many times, yet they kept giving her more chances.
She brazenly and repeatedly had sex in her offices within in moaning distance of her law clerks. None of her colleagues knew. When confronted, she lied about it repeatedly. She tried to obstruct the investigation by blaming her law clerk, who had the courage to blow the whistle. But after Judge Ross was caught--and she certainly knew she would be caught--she was given a second chance to correct the record. With this chance to unstain her reputation, Judge Ross finally came clean (unlike her couch).
The Eleventh Circuit was persuaded by her genuineness, looking past the fact that she had brazenly lied to them before. (If any law student is found to have made a material lie once, they are expelled and have no chance of ever sitting for the bar.) Rather than giving Judge Ross a public reprimand she so justly deserved, she was given a third chance and offered a private reprimand. After all, she expressed remorse and wanted to be rehabilitated. We all know that liars and adulterers mend their ways and never do it again, right?
