John Hope Bryant: “this legislation before us was created after a number of judges across this country have began taking away rights and…”

“this legislation before us was created after a number of judges across this country have began taking away rights and liberties in many of the cases before them, and the portion of this bill that I strongly support and actually authored has an impact in this situation when it comes to filing ethical complaints against judges by people who feel that they have been wrongfully treated in those courtrooms. And what it does, it removes the issue of appearance of conflict of interest, possible bias and favoritism in the review of these ethical complaints against the judges now presently done by that judge's own colleagues. The process is once a complaint is filed, it is given to the clerk of the circuit court, who then passes it on to the chief judge. My proposal allows this chief judge to ferret out, to eliminate those frivolous claims, and those claims that are based on the judge's ruling itself, which is not proper, or those incomplete complaints. But once he finds there is some merit to a complaint against a judge, rather than allow, as I said before, the judge's own colleagues within that circuit court to determine whether or not that judge is guilty of an ethical violation, I simply ask the courts to allow that to be moved over to another circuit, to other judges, who perhaps do not know that judge as well.”