Federal judge offers 'unreserved apology' after order says his Alito criticism violated ethics rules
A senior U.S. district judge in Massachusetts is offering an “unreserved apology” after he was found to have violated the judicial code of ethics for criticizing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in an op-ed in the New York Times. (Photo from Shutterstock)
Senior U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor of the District of Massachusetts is offering an “unreserved apology” and a commitment to “scrupulously avoid” future transgressions after he was found to have violated the judicial code of ethics for criticizing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in an op-ed in the New York Times.
Ponsor’s apology letter resolves the ethics complaint, according to the Dec. 10 order by Chief Judge Albert Diaz of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Richmond, Virginia. Diaz investigated after the case was transferred to his court from the appeals court with jurisdiction in Massachusetts, where Ponsor is located.
The Wall Street Journal broke the story on Diaz’s order, followed by coverage by Reuters and Bloomberg Law.
Ponsor, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, had criticized the display of an upside-down flag at Alito’s home and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at the justice’s vacation home in the May op-ed.
The flags are associated with stolen-election claims and Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol rioters. Alito has said his wife erected the flags.
“Flying those flags was tantamount to sticking a ‘Stop the Steal’ bumper sticker on your car,” Ponsor wrote in the op-ed. “You just don’t do it.”
Noting Alito’s claim that his wife flew the flags, Ponsor offered a hypothetical. If his wife had expressed her view of the death penalty when he had a case pending on that issue, Ponsor said, he would have recused himself based on the appearance of partiality.
Diaz said Ponsor’s criticism harmed public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary, and its “political implications and undertones” violated a ban on commenting on the merits of pending cases.
Following the flags controversy, Democrats had called for Alito’s recusal in pending cases involving obstruction charges against accused Capitol rioters and President-elect Donald Trump’s immunity from prosecution in the federal election-interference case.
The public might have interpreted Ponsor’s op-ed “as a commentary on partisan issues and as a call for Justice Alito’s recusal” in pending Jan. 6 cases, Diaz said.
Ponsor’s apology letter said the ethics violations were “unintentional at the time but clear in retrospect.”
The Article III Project, a conservative group, had filed the ethics complaint against Ponsor.
“The courts and Judge Ponsor took this seriously,” said Mike Davis, the founder of the Article III Project, in a statement cited by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. “I accept his apology letter at face value.”
