Letters: Tighten up state rules on judges accepting gifts

Judges should not accept gifts from lawyers. Nor should they accept gifts from people or entities that could later appear in their courts.

Yet the current rules permit such gifts to appellate and Common Pleas judges even while mandating that they be disclosed on state-filed reports.

Disclosure is just not enough to protect the integrity of the judiciary.

Simply put, it looks bad when a judge presides over a case involving someone from whom he or she has accepted dinners, golf trips, football tickets, and other expensive gifts. The best way to avoid this is to prohibit gifts - period.

People must believe they get a fair shake when they stand before a judge. Nothing should be permitted that undermines that belief. Allowing judges to accept gifts creates the appearance that a judge may be biased in favor of the gift-giver. Whether or not such bias exists, the public's perception that a judge has been improperly influenced is damaging not only to that judge but to the entire court system.

Disclosure of gifts to judges is not enough. Judges should be prohibited from accepting them altogether, as they are in most other states.

Currently, rules prohibit gifts to magisterial district judges and to court employees. These rules should apply to all Pennsylvania judges.

Lynn A. Marks

Executive director

Shira J. Goodman

Deputy director

Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts

Philadelphia

marks@pmconline.org