The Judge Who Sold Verdicts

A judge of a very large county court sat for twelve years on traffic and felony cases. Prosecutors said he took cash to decide cases the way the payer wanted: dismissing charges, steering cash bond refunds to favoured lawyers, and letting lawyers tout for clients in his courtroom. Some of the cases he was said to have fixed were fakes, invented by federal agents running an undercover operation. He argued the operation itself was unlawful and that his own trial judge should have stepped aside.