Prof. Abramson quoted as judicial ethics expert in Mother Jones article

Brandeis Law Professor Les Abramson, a nationally known expert in judicial ethics, was quoted in an August 2017 article from Mother Jones.

The August 24 article delves into the investments of the husband of a federal judge who presided over the cases of undocumented immigrants. The cases resulted from the well-known raid on a slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, in 2008. 

"Yet amid the national attention, one fact didn’t make the news: Before and after the raid, [Judge Linda R. Reade, chief judge of the Northern District of Iowa]'s husband owned stock in two private prison companies, and he bought additional prison stock five days before the raid, according to Reade’s financial disclosure forms," states the article.

"In terms of the integrity of the judiciary, in terms of the objectivity of the criminal justice system, it just looks bad if we know that a judge is making money from a business where she is sending people to serve time," the article quotes Abramson as saying. In the article, he also cites a cites a 1954 Supreme Court case ruling that the appearance of impartiality is as important as impartiality itself.

Read the full Mother Jones article.