A federal judge was determined to have violated judicial ethics rules by criticizing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in an op-ed, according to an order made public on Dec. 17.
The group, led by Mike Davis, filed a judicial misconduct complaint earlier this year under the federal Judicial Conduct and Disability Act against Ponsor, alleging that the judge breached judicial ethics.
The Article III Project acknowledged that Ponsor did not explicitly cite any cases pending before Alito but said the judge’s statements could be construed as a call for Alito to be recused from Jan. 6-related cases that were before the Supreme Court at the time the op-ed was published.
In the weeks following the Jan. 6, 2021, incident at the U.S. Capitol—during Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election results—flags associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement, which claimed that President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win was fraudulent, were flown at Alito’s properties.
One was an upside-down U.S. flag displayed at Alito’s Virginia residence, and the other was a pre-Revolutionary War “Appeal to Heaven” flag displayed at his New Jersey beach house.
Alito said his wife flew the flags and that she was not making a statement about the 2020 election.
Ponsor wrote: “To put it bluntly, any judge with reasonable ethical instincts would have realized immediately that flying the flag then and in that way was improper. And dumb.”
Posner also wrote that any reasonable judge should have realized the flag displays were inappropriate because they could be perceived as “a banner of allegiance on partisan issues that are or could be before the court.”
Acting in his capacity as a member of the Fourth Circuit Judicial Council, Judge Albert Diaz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that Ponsor violated the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges.
“The political implications and undertones of the essay violated Canon 3A(6)’s prohibition on publicly commenting on the merits of a pending matter,” Diaz wrote.
Ponsor told Diaz that he “did not have any particular case in mind” when he drafted the piece.
Diaz said that “viewed in the timeframe during which the essay was published, including the substantial press coverage detailing the calls for Justice Alito’s recusals from the then-pending January 6 cases, it would be reasonable for a member of the public to perceive the essay as a commentary on partisan issues and as a call for Justice Alito’s recusal.”
Ponsor has apologized for the op-ed.
“For these violations of the Code, unintentional at the time but clear in retrospect, I offer my unreserved apology and my commitment to scrupulously avoid any such transgression in the future,” he wrote in a Nov. 20 letter that Diaz attached to his order.
The Article III Project’s Davis said he accepted Ponsor’s “apology letter at face value.”
“The courts and Judge Ponsor took this seriously,” he said in a statement.
The Epoch Times reached out to Ponsor and Alito for comments but did not receive any replies by publication time.
