For those who missed it, a few months ago CA3 Chief Judge McKee played a central role in exposing another federal judge’s breath-taking misconduct.

Richard Cebull

Richard Cebull was a district judge in Montana. He got caught sending an email with a racist Obama joke. The Ninth Circuit investigated and found that Cebull’s misconduct was far more pervasive than publicly known, and spelled it out in an order concluding Cebull violated judicial ethics. At this point, Cebull chose to retire, whereupon the Ninth Circuit vacated its violation order and decided not to release it to the public. “Moot,” they said.

Enter Chief Judge McKee. He petitioned, twice, to make the violation order public. He was refused by the Ninth Circuit. But he won. In January, the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States — five circuit judges, including Scirica and the judge I clerked for, David Ebel — ordered release of the damning details. They wrote, “The imperative of transparency of the complaint process compels publication of orders finding judicial misconduct.”

The Committee’s order laying out the whole story, including McKee’s role, is here.