Washington, DC— Today, the nation's first comprehensive study of the systems that hold state and federal judges accountable ranked Minnesota 20th in the nation and issued the state's program a C-Minus grade. To shine a light on the typically secretive and toothless systems that often fail to remove abusive and incompetent judges from the bench, legal consumer watchdog group HALT, Inc. released its 2008 Judicial Accountability Report Card, analyzing programs in all 50 states, D.C. and the federal circuits.

"Minnesota's system of judicial oversight fails to meaningfully discipline those who abuse their positions of power," stated HALT Senior Counsel Suzanne M. Blonder. Last year, the Board on Judicial Standards refused to remove a Dakota County judge who repeatedly did favors for a friend involved in two drunken-driving cases. Judge William Thuet inappropriately took his friend's plea in a 2005 case and then got her out of jail without even conducting a bail hearing when she was arrested again in 2006. Thuet was allowed to forego formal charges in exchange for accepting a token reprimand and paying a fine.

HALT's study also found that Minnesota rules fail to place meaningful limitations on the reimbursement and compensation that judges may accept in connection with corporate and special interest funded trips. "Minnesota's laws unfortunately include massive loopholes that still allow members of the judiciary to be wined and dined on the corporate dime," noted Blonder.

Additionally, the Web site for Minnesota's Board on Judicial Standards does not provide a clear explanation of the disciplinary process and lacks critical resources, such as a downloadable complaint form, a database of past disciplinary rulings and a link to the state's procedural rules on judicial discipline. "Without online resources like these, the public has very little guidance about how to file a judicial ethics complaint or how to determine if a judge has a history of misconduct," stated Blonder.

None of the top five states-Washington, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Arizona and California-scored higher than a B average on HALT's Report Card. More than half of the states received grades in the C range and HALT issued D's to 14 jurisdictions. Two states-Maine and Mississippi-flunked outright.

"At a time when the American public has lost faith in the impartiality and fairness of the nation's judiciary, it's critical that we have an effective system of oversight for judges," stated Blonder. "We hope that Minnesota's chief judicial officers will work to transform a mechanism marred by toothlessness into a system dedicated to upholding the integrity of the judiciary."