EDIT: Yeah this plaintiff is nuts. His complaint, linked by a response to my comment and in other places, is just bizarre. I would highly doubt any allegations he might make.This guy has apparently been suing a bunch of judges in the family courts in Las Vegas. A lot of those proceedings appear to be online: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsKMpjAPcB2vRRCMtdEb1...
Importantly, the judge did not actually use AI. She just followed the law. In the original family court case the plaintiff had submitted an AI drafted filing which did not include any (real) legal citations supporting the legal arguments made and was given the opportunity to amend but refused to do so. So the judge ruled against him on all 5 claims.
EDIT. This all supposedly happened back in mid 2023... the AI tools the plaintiff alleged the judge used didn't get released until 2024.
EDIT 2. The plaintiff actually says he wants an AI judge.
EDIT 3. If you read the complaint in full it's clear he has severe mental issues and doesn't grasp how the law works. Severe jurisdictional confusion and lack of understanding about basic trial processes (even though he claims to be admitted to the Supreme Court Bar). Every judge in America would rule against him.
If outsourcing is permitted, then why have judges in the first place? why not just have an AI and let it do all the work and save money for the govt?
Yes, judges can (and have) "outsourced" writing court opinions. SCOTUS and lower courts have done this with law clerks since the earliest days.
Yes, they can allow interested parties to do so. You can argue they shouldn't, but that's a different issue from legality.
The next paragraph is just a wild leap.
That's the threat at least, but do the majority actually feel that way today? Given how frequently our legal system has denied people justice and the scale at which that's been happening, I wonder how much of a threat it really is in our current environment. I'm not sure what it is that keeps people from trying to take matters into their own hands more often. Maybe it's learned helplessness, despair, fear, or lack of opportunity, but whatever it is it's been pretty effective considering the kinds of harms that people have suffered with no recourse to be made whole through the courts.
So just because a judge completely abdicates their responsibility to use their own judgment, the person now needs to go through a lengthy and expensive appeals process? And even if the judge is sanctioned or removed from the bench, that only prevents future harm; it does not actually make whole the person they have already harmed.
I can tolerate some level of immunity -- maybe even beyond qualified immunity -- to protect judges that make good-faith errors. But when they're engaging in blatant misconduct, it seems like absolute immunity is providing more protection than is necessary or warranted.
People need money
Other articles by volokh might be intentionally incendiary (I haven't read them) but this one is as bland as bland gets.
> And even if the judge is sanctioned or removed from the bench, that only prevents future harm; it does not actually make whole the person they have already harmed.
Yes this is a general problem with misconduct by police, prosecutors, and judges. A lot of times you are fortunate simply to win the case, but usually don't get any compensation for harm caused by the arrest, incarceration before trial, and cost of defense.
I would support dropping immunity and allowing private lawsuits when misconduct is proven through existing processes. But more-so it is very frustrating to me how often the American justice system focuses on punishing the perpetrator while doing little to make the victim whole. The victim should not be required to file a separate private lawsuit to obtain compensation, it should always be part of a criminal prosecution and other disciplinary processes.
In fact, a successful appeal might have helped a subsequent lawsuit against the judge since questions like "was AI used?" would have already been litigated. Instead they filed a new lawsuit where those questions won't even be considered until the immunity question is addressed.
It seems like a very strange legal strategy, particularly since from what I can tell the plaintiff is himself an experienced lawyer.
But of course a court can't dismiss someone's complaint on the grounds that they're nuts; in order to rule on the substance of this case, a court would have to conduct new hearings to gather all the details about the original hearing in which AI was allegedly used. The purpose of judicial immunity is to push all objections to judicial decisions through the appellate courts, which don't have to re-hear everything before issuing a ruling.
the correct steps are appeals in the merit and disciplinary action against the judge
This is not how the legal system works. You need grounds for the Appeal - such as procedural - AND need to get another court to agree with your grounds AND be willing to have the case heard again. None of these are gimmes, and they all take time and money.
Your other criticisms are valid, such as time, money and there is definitely deference to lower court judges. But the recourse for a judge misunderstanding the law (for AI or any reason) is the appeal process.
And if an appellate court got involved and somehow found a judge outsourced their judging to an AI, it's hard to imagine them accepting that. A "polite suggestion" that the relevant bar or judicial association look in to something, coming from a federal Circuit Court of Appeals, is neither polite nor a suggestion, and will receive the due gravity of a "polite suggestion" coming from one of the most powerful bodies in the country.
In practice the entire system has become political, corrupted or both. As a result, the only rights most people have are those where officers of a court are only limited by where their immunity ends. They can and do violate the law and ignore large parts of it if it suits them.
Assuming someone has the resources to even get any oversight at all, in most cases those involved will investigate each other and decide they have done nothing wrong. Even in the unlikely event that someone proves an illegal act, they will just claim immunity.
You would probably have a really good shot at an appeal, too.