Court Opinion

ID: 9494915
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:49:57.113543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:42.106113
License: Public Domain

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
with whom RIPPLE, DIANE P. WOOD, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
This case demands that we give concrete meaning to a cornerstone of our justice system-an impartial judiciary. The right to a fair and unbiased judge is undisputed. Bracy v. Gramley, 520 U.S. 899, 904-05, 117 S.Ct. 1793, 1797, 138 L.Ed.2d 97 (1997). But as with any constitutional safeguard, proof of the right lies in its enforcement. See Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 241-42, 99 S.Ct. 2264, 2275, 60 L.Ed.2d 846 (1979). Here we are asked to decide whether a judge who was, actively engaged in bribe-taking could be (and was) impartial in a case where no bribe was tendered, or whether his financial and penal interests tainted his. decision-making even when no money changed hands.
Any inquiry into what motivates a judge to rule is perilous. Our concept of justice depends on the notion of an impartial judiciary, and yet we know that true impartiality in a judge is no more than an aspiration. Judges are human beings, and so they can never completely transcend the limits of their own experiences and perspectives. In the usual case, then, we abstain from looking behind a judge’s rulings, content to treat his oath of office as sufficient proof that he acted free from bias. “As Blackstone put it, ‘the law will not suppose a possibility of bias or favour in a judge, who is already sworn to administer impartial justice, and whose authority greatly depends upon that presumption and idea.’ ” Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Lavoie, 475 U.S. 813, 820, 106 S.Ct. 1580, 1584-85, 89 L.Ed.2d 823 (1986), quoting 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries, at *361. Here we cannot sweep human nature under the rug. Maloney did not simply try but fail to administer justice impartially; he deliberately and repeatedly abandoned his oath of neutrality for his own gain. We know that Maloney accepted bribes to fix at least four cases, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenditures for which his reported income does not account raises the distinct possibility that these were merely the tip of the iceberg. See R. 161 Exs. 53, 54; Collins v. Welborn, 79 F.Supp.2d 898, 907. ¶ 40 (N.D.Ill.1999).
Ironically, the fact that Maloney was a corrupt judge makes it harder rather than easier for us to decide whether he was an impartial decisionmaker in the petitioners’ case. The evidence has not given us a direct look into Maloney’s mind, so we have no way of knowing for certain whether Maloney acted from a position of bias or impartiality when he presided over the trial of Bracy and Collins. We must instead look to his rulings at trial, and to the circumstances surrounding his bribe-taking, for clues as to his motives and disposition. And the absence of evidence that can definitively confirm or dispel the possibility of bias presents us with a choice between two unappealing courses of action. We can infer from the circumstances that Judge Maloney’s corruption rendered him partial and vacate the petitioners’ convictions, a step that will necessitate a retrial many years after they were convicted. To Judge Posner’s way of thinking, this sim*427ply compounds the wrong that Judge Ma-loney committed by accepting bribes. Ante at 419. Or, in the absence of direct proof of bias, we can cling to the notion that Maloney was a fit and fair judge so long as he was not bribed. To say that a serial bribe-taker meets the constitutional standard of impartiality, however, is a hard pill to swallow. Judge Evans appropriately asks why the decision-making of a corrupt judge is entitled to any protection at all. Ante at 411.
I submit that the question would be much easier to answer if we were asked to decide it ex ante. Suppose for a moment that a district judge within our jurisdiction announced on his first day of service that he was sworn to be impartial and that he would give the parties a fair trial unless the defendant wished to bribe him, in which case he would give the defense a leg up. That is essentially how Judge Posner postulates that Maloney operated — that he gave the parties a fair trial unless bribed to do otherwise; it is just that Maloney did not announce his bribe-taking to the world. But imagine for a moment that our hypothetical judge did. If a defendant unwilling to tender a bribe — or for that matter the prosecutor — sought mandamus complaining that, in view of the announcement, the judge did not constitute an impartial decisionmaker, I very much doubt that we would deny the request with an admonition that so long as no bribe was tendered, the parties had nothing to worry about. The judge’s removal from the case and from the bench would be swift and certain.
Our inquiry in this case is burdened by the fact that Judge Maloney’s bribe-taking was not exposed until after he had been a trial judge for many years. The question really is no different than the one we would have to answer in my hypothetical, but the ramifications are more weighty. Maloney presided over the disposition of thousands of cases, and recognizing his lack of impartiality in one ease presents the prospect that all of the cases he handled must be vacated. Indeed, that uncomfortable prospect is the one and only justification that has been offered over the long history of this litigation for concluding that a thoroughly corrupt judge amounts to a constitutionally acceptable decision-maker. We acknowledge that Maloney’s conduct was appalling, that his crimes showed contempt for his office, but we say nothing about why, doctrinally, a judicial racketeer should be considered a fair and impartial decisionmaker.
In most cases, of course, we may simply presume that the trial judge was impartial. E.g., Schweiker v. McClure, 456 U.S. 188, 195, 102 S.Ct. 1665, 1670, 72 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982). But, as the Supreme Court has recognized, that presumption has been “soundly rebutted” in view of Maloney’s extensive history of corruption. Bracy, 520 U.S. at 908-09, 117 S.Ct. at 1799. The Supreme Court concluded that the dissipation of the presumption amounted to “good cause” which entitled Bracy and Collins to discovery so that they might attempt to show bias. Id. at 908-09, 117 S.Ct. at 1799. As Judge Evans appropriately recognizes, it also establishes the starting point for our review of the results of that discovery. Ante at 409.
Before we proceed further, however, we must ask who bears the burden of establishing Maloney’s impartiality or lack thereof, given that the presumption of impartiality has already been rebutted. Both Judge Evans and Judge Posner assume that it is the petitioners’ burden to show bias. See ante at 411, 420-21. Given the fundamental nature of the constitutional right in question and the gravity of Malo-ney’s misconduct, however, I wonder if that is right. Judicial bias is among the kind of structural errors which implicate *428both the fundamental fairness of the trial and society’s perception of the integrity of the process. See United States v. Harbin, 250 F.3d 532, 543 (7th Cir.2001). Consequently, judicial bias if proven requires automatic reversal; as Judge Evans notes, it is not subject to harmless-error review like most trial errors. Ante at 414; see Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 279, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 2081, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993), citing Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 535, 47 S.Ct. 437, 445, 71 L.Ed. 749 (1927). Here, of course, the issue is whether bias has been shown. In the usual case, it would be the petitioners’ burden to make that showing. Schweiker, 456 U.S. at 196, 102 S.Ct. at 1670. Yet, we all recognize the inherent difficulty of peering into the mind of a corrupt judge and assessing whether he had a wish to see these particular petitioners convicted and/or sentenced to death. Ante at 411-12, 421; see Cartalino v. Washington, 122 F.3d 8, 11 (7th Cir.1997). Not surprisingly, given Malo-ney’s ongoing protestations of innocence and the invocations of the Fifth Amendment among his cohorts, Bracy and Collins have not secured an admission that Malo-ney invariably engaged in compensatory bias or that he did so in this particular case. See ante at 421-22. What they have shown, however, is that Maloney engaged in a pervasive pattern of corruption that was in full flower when they came before him: Recall that Bracy and Collins were tried shortly before Maloney commenced the notorious trial of People v. Chow, in which he was paid to acquit each of the three defendants of murder. See Collins, 79 F.Supp.2d at 903, 908 ¶¶ 12, 47. We are naturally reluctant to embark on a path that theoretically might lead to the undoing of every one of the thousands of cases over which Maloney presided. But if it was possible for Maloney, when not bribed, to provide the parties with a fair trial, why should it not be up to the State — which has far greater resources— to supply us with adequate proof of his impartiality?
Our opinion in Harbin recognizes a category of trial errors that occupy a middle ground between the usual kinds of errors, which are subject to harmless-error review, and structural errors, which are conclusively presumed to be prejudicial and therefore result in automatic reversal. 250 F.3d at 543-44. These are serious errors, like jury tampering, which create an obvious and significant potential for prejudice, but which are, at the same time, difficult for a defendant to prove harmful. In such cases, prejudice is presumed but not conclusively — if the government can show that no harm resulted, then the conviction will stand. Id. at 544.
I submit that the corruption of the trial judge falls into this category of errors. Maloney’s willingness to repudiate the oath of impartiality by repeatedly accepting bribes calls into question his ability to be fair in any case. See ante at 411. If he was inclined to help the State when not bribed — whether to camouflage his corruption or to promote future bribes — the potential prejudice to a defendant who did not bribe him is obvious. Yet as this case makes altogether clear, proving the manifestation of that bias is extremely difficult. To assign the burden of proof to the petitioners may therefore be unrealistic and improper. Maloney was the State’s representative. See ante at 411. His bribetak-ing was wholly beyond the petitioners’ knowledge and control. If the State, in the face of evidence establishing that Ma-loney’s corruption knew no bounds, wishes to defend the validity of the convictions over which he presided, then the burden arguably should fall upon it to affirmatively establish that Maloney was a fair and impartial judge when not bribed.
*429If the burden of proof is to be assigned to the petitioners, as Judges Evans and Posner both assume that it should be, then the limits of the proof available to them must be recognized. When the panel heard oral arguments in this ease following the remand, I asked the State’s counsel how Bracy and Collins might successfully prove that Maloney was biased. The State’s counsel conceded that such a showing was all but impossible to make, absent an admission from Maloney himself or a pattern of courtroom conduct so obviously askew as to make his bias plain. The reason for the difficulty is obvious. Without a direct glimpse into Maloney’s mind, we are left to look for indirect and incomplete clues as to Maloney’s motives.
Proceeding from the premise that a judge’s bias may be shown indirectly, ante at 411-12, Judge Evans locates some facts which raise the possibility that Maloney engaged in compensatory, camouflaging bias in this case: Maloney’s appointment of McDonnell, a two-time felon and “outfit” lawyer, to represent Bracy; his citation of the convictions of Bracy and Collins (along with those of Hawkins and Fields) at his own sentencing as purported proof that he was an honest judge; and Maloney’s unsuccessful effort to secure an affidavit from McDonnell asserting that it was Bra-cy, not Maloney, who chose McDonnell. Ante at 413-14. Collectively, these facts suggest that Maloney may have been looking at the Bracy-Collins prosecution as an opportunity to hide his bribe-taking, if not to cultivate additional bribes. Although Judge Evans detects no sign that such a compensatory bias was at work during the guilt/innocence phase of the trial, several circumstances suggest to him that Malo-ney may indeed have abandoned his “solemn responsibility” to assure the fairness of the penalty phase. Ante at 415. These include the summary denials of Bracy’s motion to exclude evidence regarding the Arizona murders, Collins’ alternative motion for a severance, and Bracy’s alternative motion for a continuance; Maloney’s efforts to actively discourage McDonnell from making a closing argument at the penalty hearing; and his failure to stop McDonnell (even in the face of the State’s objections) from engaging in a tirade against the death penalty, a tirade which invited the prosecution to make an argument that might have constituted reversible error had the defense not invited it. Ante at 416-19.
By contrast, Judge Posner’s analysis proceeds from the premise that a judge’s compensatory bias must be established directly, rather than inferentially. See ante at 421-22. He postulates that a case-specific bias could be shown in the same manner that it was in Cartalino, 122 F.3d at 10, where there was evidence that the judge had agreed to acquit one defendant and to do what he could to secure the conviction of the complaining co-defendant. Ante at 422. Or the trial record might reflect a pattern of rulings so blatantly slanted in favor of the State that it cannot be explained by any theory other than compensatory bias. Ante at 422. Alternatively, the petitioners might prove, through the corrupt judge’s own testimony or through unspecified other evidence, that the judge had resolved to secure the convictions of all defendants who did not bribe him. Ante at 422. There is no such evidence here; and for Judge Posner, that ends our inquiry. That Maloney engaged in a pattern of bribe-taking does not alone, in his view, permit the inference that he ever engaged in compensatory bias. Ante at 421 Nor does proof that he harbored such bias in some cases permit the inference that he indulged such bias in this case. Id. In the end, Judge Posner concludes, all that the court can point to is the *430appearance of bias, and that appearance, as this court held in Del Vecchio v. Illinois Dep’t of Corrections, 31 F.3d 1363 (7th Cir.1994) (en banc), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1037, 115 S.Ct. 1404, 131 L.Ed.2d 290 (1995), does not alone permit us to invalidate the petitioners’ convictions. Ante at 425-26.
In my view, Judge Evans and Judge Posner are both right — in part. Ultimately, however, both of my colleagues attempt to cabin the effects of Maloney’s wrongdoing in ways that are inconsistent with the nature and extent of his corruption and the signs of compensatory bias that the evidence supplies us.
Judge Evans’ analysis displays a pragmatic appreciation for the nature of Malo-ney’s wrongdoing. Although the point may seem obvious, one cannot conduct a proper search for compensatory bias without having in mind the basic nature of Maloney’s criminal conduct. Maloney did not simply experience a momentary ethical lapse, or commit a crime unrelated to the job of judging. He used his position as a judge to reap (apparently) hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. Among the uncomfortably large group of judges convicted of bribe-taking in Cook County, he holds the distinction of being the only one in the United States proven to have accepted bribes in murder cases. See Retired Judge Sentenced, National Law Journal, Aug. 1, 1994, at A8. The utter contempt that his pattern of crimes shows for the duties of his office, and in particular for the concept of judicial impartiality, wholly eliminates any presumption that he was a fair and decent judge when not pocketing money. See Bracy, 520 U.S. at 909, 117 S.Ct. at 1799. This in turn deprives the State of the benefit of the doubt with respect to evidence that raises questions about the propriety of Judge Malo-ney’s actions in trying Bracy and Collins. So, as we consider what the record tells us about Maloney’s mindset, we cannot resort to any tie-breaking presumption of impartiality in the face of evidence that is ambiguous or permits conflicting inferences about Maloney’s motives.
By contrast, Judge Posner’s analysis treats a judge’s corruption as but a variant of stock ownership: So long as a judge did not acquire a concrete interest in the acquittal or conviction of the defendant by pocketing a bribe, there is no reason to think that his judgment was tainted. Instead, the petitioners must supply us with a reason to doubt the judge’s impartiality. E.g., Cartalino, 122 F.3d at 10. Actually, Judge Maloney’s pattern of bribes gives us a compelling reason to doubt his ability to be a fair, competent judge even in cases where no money changed hands. A judge cannot repudiate his oath of office any more completely than by accepting a bribe; fixing a case is the antithesis of judging. The notion that even a corrupt judge will give the parties a fair trial — unless the proof affirmatively shows otherwise — necessarily hinges upon some sort of presumption of impartiality. In resorting to that aid, however, Judge Posner, who finds so many other points resolved by the Supreme Court’s opinion in this case, overlooks one about which the Court could not have been more clear: The presumption of impartiality that normally attaches to a judge’s conduct has been “soundly rebutted” in this case by the facts underlying Maloney’s conviction. 520 U.S. at 909, 117 S.Ct. at 1793. We no longer have that crutch to lean upon.
With the presumption of impartiality having been removed from the case, Judge Evans is correct to recognize that Malo-ney’s bias may be established indirectly. See ante at 412. The evidence available to Bracy and Collins simply does not afford them or us a glimpse into Maloney’s mind. *431Maloney will not admit to his bribe-taking, let alone discuss what his motives were when he was not bribed. If there are others with whom he may have discussed his mindset, they are either unknown or unwilling to reveal what they know. So we must look for less direct clues as to the presence or absence of bias elsewhere in the evidence.
By insisting upon direct proof of bias, Judge Posner would deny relief whenever the parties lack an unobstructed view into the corrupt judge’s mind — even if the evidence otherwise suggests that bias may, in fact, have been present. The proof of bias that he demands is proof that in virtually all cases must come from the corrupt judge himself. The judge must either (1) confess to the bias under oath, (2) admit the bias at some point to a co-conspirator, who later proves willing to repeat the admission under oath,1 or (3) render a pattern of rulings so blatantly favoring the prosecution that they cannot be explained by any hypothesis other than bias. Each of these direct forms of proof is unavailable here: Maloney will not admit to having taken a single bribe, let alone to any form of bias; his former partners in crime have either invoked the Fifth Amendment or pleaded ignorance of his motives; and although his rulings consistently favored the State, as Judge Posner himself points out, ante at 425, they are not so blatantly suspect as to bespeak bias in and of themselves. (The sole alternative means of establishing bias that Judge Posner cites — a Cartalino-like scenario in which one defendant bribes the judge both to acquit him and to convict his co-defendant-obviously will not be available in a case like this one, where no money has changed hands.) But the lack of the kind of proof that Judge Posner envisions by no means rules out the possibility that the corrupt judge was, in fact, indulging in compensatory bias. All that the judge need do to avoid creating the kind of record that Judge Posner envisions is to keep his mouth shut about his compensatory bias and to refrain from making bizarre rulings. Insistence upon direct proof would consequently foreclose relief in cases involving corrupt but careful judges who are unwilling to expose their own compensatory bias.
I therefore agree with Judge Evans that the search for proof of compensatory bias must include indirect, as well as direct, signs of such bias, and that the record in this case supplies us with adequate signs that such bias was at work during the capital phase of Bracy’s and Collins’ trial. His analysis appropriately recognizes that a corrupt judge may subvert the trial process not simply by offering affirmative assistance to one party or the other, but also by failing to preserve the balance between the litigants and to ensure that a criminal defendant’s rights are not neglected. See ante at 415-19. He is also correct to point out that the lack of a neutral arbiter arguably poses the greatest threat to the defendant’s rights at the penalty phase of a capital trial, when the inquiry turns from the relatively straightforward determination of whether or not the defendant committed a crime to the question of whether or not he should die for that crime, a profound determination that turns on a largely subjective assessment of his entire criminal history, the psycho-social context of that history, the effects his crimes have had upon others, his prospects for reform and redemption, and so forth. See id. at 415. Against that backdrop, I believe Judge Evans rightly concludes, as did Judge Hart, that bias may be inferred from Judge Maloney’s handling of the pen*432alty phase of the Braey-Collins trial. The flaws that Judge Evans seizes upon might not, in the abstract, seem like compelling enough proof to overcome the presumption of impartiality that normally attaches to a judge’s rulings. But, again, that presumption is gone from this case. Our analysis must therefore proceed without attributing to Maloney any of the goodwill we would assign to the presumptively honest judge. The rulings and remarks that Judge Evans cites — in particular, Maloney’s decisions to allow testimony regarding the Arizona murders into evidence, to deny a severance, and to deny a continuance, all without any articulated reasons, and his (unsuccessful) effort to discourage Bracy’s lawyer from making a closing argument (when the jury’s choice of penalty was between life and death!) — reasonably suggest that Maloney had abandoned his role as a neutral arbiter. If there are other facts that tilt the scales in the opposite direction — which affirmatively show, in other words, that Maloney was attempting to give the defense a fair penalty hearing — neither the State nor Judge Posner has cited them. In that context, I agree with Judge Evans that Judge Hart did not clearly err in finding that the penalty phase of the trial reflects compensatory bias on Maloney’s part.
But I think that Judge Posner is right to question the plausibility of inferring that Maloney was biased as to the capital phase of the trial but not the guilt/innocence phase. As Judge Posner points out, Judge Maloney’s rulings at the guilt phase of the trial consistently favored the prosecution, just as they did at the penalty phase. Ante at 425. I would add that a number of the rulings at the guilt phase had significant effects on the course of the trial. Not the least among these rulings was Malo-ney’s decision (which he later sought to pin on Bracy, see ante at 414) to appoint McDonnell as Bracy’s lawyer. Few decisions are more important than the choice of one’s trial counsel. However poor an attorney’s skills, level of preparedness, and tactical decisions appear to be in retrospect, the range of representation deemed constitutionally adequate is wide. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2065, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Even wholly inexcusable lapses by an attorney may be deemed harmless once his client has been convicted. See id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. at 2064 (to succeed on ineffectiveness claim, defendant must show not only that his counsel’s performance was deficient, but that the attorney’s errors prejudiced the defense). With two felony convictions to his name, an evident ethical impairment, and connections to organized crime, McDonnell was hardly an obvious candidate for a court appointment to represent someone charged with a capital offense-unless, perhaps, the appointing judge was uninterested (or worse, malevolently interested) in the quality of representation that the defendant received. McDonnell’s announcement, just three weeks after he was appointed, that he was ready for trial further raises an already-elevated eyebrow. McDonnell’s failure at the capital phase of the trial to present a scintilla of mitigating evidence that would warrant imprisonment rather than execution, and his failure to make any argument against imposition of the death penalty other than a generalized attack upon capital punishment, see Hall v. Washington, 106 F.3d 742, 750 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 907, 118 S.Ct. 264, 139 L.Ed.2d 190 (1997), raise obvious doubts about his overall effectiveness and- — given his shady credentials — Maloney’s decision to appoint him in the first place. The rationale for confining the finding of bias to the capital phase of the trial therefore remains elusive. The fact that a defendant’s life is at stake in a capital proceeding may well *433heighten the judge’s duty to maintain the balance between the parties and magnify the harm resulting from his failure to do so; however, the judge enjoys no less discretion in a non-capital (or for that matter, a noncriminal) proceeding and has no less of an ability to exercise that discretion in such a way as to steer the outcome to a particular result.2
Indeed, the extent of a judge’s discretion, and the cloak that discretion provides for a judge’s bias, are matters that Judges Posner and Evans both underestimate. Neither finds a reason to question any of Judge Maloney’s rulings at the guilt/innocence phase of the trial, and although Judge Evans questions a number of Malo-ney’s rulings at the penalty phase, Judge Posner finds even those rulings perfectly defensible. But discretionary rulings are an unreliable barometer for the bias of the trial judge. Such rulings can rarely be labeled “correct” or “incorrect” in the sense that there is only one proper ruling in a particular set of circumstances. The very concept of discretion assumes that any number of answers to a question are possible, and that the answer is best left to the assessment of the judge. Abuse of discretion typically is found not when the judge fails to render the “right” ruling, but when he or she applies the wrong legal standard, ignores crucial facts, or rests his ruling on irrelevant or inappropriate factors. E.g., Ty, Inc. v. Jones Group, Inc., 237 F.3d 891, 896 (7th Cir.2001); United States v. Tingle, 183 F.3d 719, 728 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 1048, 120 S.Ct. 584, 145 L.Ed.2d 486 (1999); United States v. McDowell, 117 F.3d 974, 978 n. 4 (7th Cir.1997). Indeed, so long as they are applying the right law and considering the relevant factors, two judges may confront the same problem and render different rulings without either one of them having abused their discretion or committed clear error. United States v. Williams, 81 F.3d 1434, 1437 (7th Cir.1996), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1006, 118 S.Ct. 582, 139 L.Ed.2d 420 (1997), and cert. denied sub nom. Bates v. United States, 522 U.S. 1062, 118 S.Ct. 723, 139 L.Ed.2d 662 (1998). “That possibility is implicit in the concept of a discre*434tionary judgment.” Id.,citing Rice v. Nova Biomedical Corp., 38 F.3d 909, 918 (7th Cir.1994), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1111, 115 S.Ct. 1964, 131 L.Ed.2d 855 (1995). Rulings that on their face are justifiable therefore tell us little about whether compensatory bias was at work in the judge’s decision-making. Likewise, a judge may abuse his discretion, may even commit a “veritable avalanche of errors,” United States v. Santos, 201 F.3d 953, 965 (7th Cir.2000), without there being reason to suspect that bias was at work. Judges make mistakes, period. Bias, when it is at work, will not necessarily announce itself in either the judge’s ruling or his rationale. See Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 263, 106 S.Ct. 617, 623, 88 L.Ed.2d 598 (1986) (“when the trial judge is discovered to have had some basis for rendering a biased judgment, his actual motivations are hidden from review-”) (emphasis supplied). A corrupt judge who wishes to stack the deck against a party may cite plausible reasons for his rulings and yet make his decisions for illicit purposes; it is easy to imagine that a judge with Malo-ney’s experience would not find it difficult to cloak his bias, if any, in this way. That Maloney’s rulings at either phase of the trial therefore seem appropriate — that is, within the range of discretion — tells us little about whether those rulings were infected by compensatory bias. The only objective observation we can make with certainty is that they consistently favored the State.
The inherent difficulty of piercing a judge’s exercise of discretion is what has led me to conclude that the temptation-to-bias framework is a superior means of analyzing the petitioners’ claim. Cases such as Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 532, 47 S.Ct. 437, 444, 71 L.Ed. 749 (1927), In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 136-37, 75 S.Ct. 623, 625-26, 99 L.Ed. 942 (1955), and Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Lavoie, 475 U.S. 813, 821-25, 106 S.Ct. 1580, 1585-87, 89 L.Ed.2d 823 (1986), recognize that circumstances which give the judge a stake in the outcome of a cause present her with a temptation to favor one party or the other. These cases disavow any inquiry into whether the judge in fact yielded to the temptation. To the contrary, in each case, the Supreme Court acknowledged the possibility that the judge in question was not, in fact, biased. Id. at 825, 106 S.Ct. at 1587; Murchison, 349 U.S. at 136, 75 S.Ct. at 625; see also id. at 140, 75 S.Ct. at 627 (Reed, J., dissenting); Tumey, 273 U.S. at 532, 47 S.Ct. at 444. Instead, the Court found the mere possibility that the judge might have yielded to the temptation sufficient to vacate the judgment:
[T]he requirement of due process of law in judicial procedure is not satisfied by the argument that men of the highest honor and the greatest self-sacrifice could carry it on without danger of injustice. Every procedure which would offer a possible temptation to the average man as a judge to forget the burden of proof required to convict the defendant, or which might lead him not to hold the balance nice, clear, and true between the state and the accused denies the latter due process of law.
Ibid, (emphasis supplied); see also Aetna Life, 475 U.S. at 825, 106 S.Ct. at 1587 (“The Due Process Clause ‘may sometimes bar trial by judges who have no actual bias and who would do their very best to weigh the scales of justice equally between contending parties.’ ”) (quoting Murchison, 349 U.S. at 136, 75 S.Ct. at 625); Murchison, 349 U.S. at 136, 75 S.Ct. at 625 (“our system of law has always endeavored to prevent even the probability of unfairness”). Implicit in the Court’s rationale is the recognition that we cannot always know, in hindsight, whether a judge confronted with such an incentive was or was *435not impartial. Vasquez, 474 U.S. at 263, 106 S.Ct. at 623 (citing Tumey, 273 U.S. at 535, 47 S.Ct. at 445). Given the inability to rule out bias in fact, the possibility of such bias lingers, undermining confidence in the judgment. Ibid.; see also Murchison, 349 U.S. at 136, 75 S.Ct. at 625 (“to perform its high function in the best way, ‘justice must satisfy the appearance of justice’”) (quoting Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11, 14, 75 S.Ct. 11, 13, 99 L.Ed. 11 (1954)). I submit that this case, like Tu-mey, Murchison, and Aetna Life, presents a temptation to bias, and whether or not Judge Maloney was actually motivated by that bias cannot really be known. See Vasquez, 474 U.S. at 263, 106 S.Ct. at 623. True, the case does not involve a case-specific, purely financial bias, as Judge Posner points out. Ante at 421. Neither, I would add, does it involve an honest judge making a good-faith effort to abide by his oath of office. Maloney’s pattern of bribe-taking, coupled with the possible temptation to favor the State in cases where no bribe was tendered — in order to conceal his corruption and encourage defendants to bribe him — promotes lingering doubts as to the validity of the judgments over which he presided. The discomfort is evident in the divided nature of the court’s opinion today.
Of course, Judge Posner remains skeptical that Maloney had any incentive to lean in favor of the State. See ante at 420-21. Again he suggests that a corrupt judge might be just as likely to hide his bribe-taking by cultivating a pro-defendant reputation, so that an acquittal or other ruling paid for by the defense looks less suspect. Ante at 421. We know, however, that Maloney did not adopt a consistent defense leaning in order to camouflage his corruption — Maloney long had a reputation for being a tough, State-oriented judge. Yet, we also know that Maloney was quite concerned about exposure, and was willing to take even precipitous steps to hide his bribe-taking. Thus, he returned the $10,000 bribe he had been given to acquit Hawkins and Fields and then convicted them; and in Titone, he went so far as to keep the $10,000 bribe but convicted the defendant anyway. Judge Posner insists that “[njeither case had anything to do with compensatory bias,” ante at 423, but this ignores the findings that the state courts rendered in vacating the convictions in those cases. The Illinois Supreme Court found that Hawkins and Fields were entitled to a new trial because Maloney had been motivated to convict them in order to deflect suspicion from himself. People v. Hawkins, 181 Ill.2d 41, 228 Ill.Dec. 924, 690 N.E.2d 999, 1004 (Ill.1998) (“[Maloney] wanted to insure that he did not lose his judicial post and salary as a result of criminal indictment, and therefore was motivated to return a verdict that would not spark the suspicions of authorities”). Similarly, in ordering a new trial for Titone, Judge Strayhorn implicitly but unmistakably acknowledged that Maloney had an incentive to convict Titone in order to camouflage his corruption. R. 239, People v. Titone, No. 83 C 127, Post-conviction Tr. at 12 (“Dino Titone did not receive the kind of fair, impartial trial before a fair, unbiased, impartial judge that his constitutional rights as a citizen required.”). True, neither court found that Maloney yielded to that incentive, for the direct proof necessary to establish actual, compensatory bias was lacking there just as it is here. Theoretically, it was possible that Maloney gave Hawkins, Fields, and Titone fair trials notwithstanding the bribes that had been tendered. But the incentive to convict them in order to serve Maloney’s interest in avoiding detection was present, and the possibility that he gave in to that incentive was real. It is also true that in this case, unlike Hawkins and Titone, *436there was no bribe tendered that might have attracted the eye of government investigators. Yet William Swano’s testimony suggests that Maloney practiced compensatory bias precisely in cases like this one, where no bribe was tendered, in order to cultivate bribes from the defense bar. Recall that Swano, who had bribed Malo-ney in previous cases, withheld a bribe in the Davis case because he thought he had a strong case on the merits. To Swano’s surprise, Maloney convicted his client. Swano interpreted the conviction as a message from Maloney that payment was required in order to obtain an acquittal in his courtroom. Maloney’s bagman, Robert McGee, appears to have confirmed the accuracy of that construction when he and Swano met to discuss a bribe in a subsequent case. McGee told Swano that Malo-ney was willing to discuss a bribe in view of the fact that he had “screwed” Swano in the Davis case. R. 241, United States v. Maloney & McGee, 1994 WL 96673, Trial Tr. at 2568. Collectively, this evidence demonstrates that Judge Maloney was faced with a temptation to favor the State in some cases in order to both promote and hide his bribe-taking in others, and that he yielded to that temptation on more than one occasion. Particularly in view of the evidence that Judge Evans has cited suggesting that Maloney abandoned neutrality in this particular case, there is every reason to think that Maloney confronted the same temptation here. That is more than enough, under Turney, Murchison, and Aetna Life, to entitle Bracy and Collins to relief.
Whether the Supreme Court will adopt or reject the temptation-to-bias framework for judicial corruption cases remains to be seen. Judge Posner may be a superior reader of tea leaves, but I can find no actual holding in the Court’s opinion in this case to the effect that Turney and its progeny are inapposite and that actual bias invariably must be shown. Yes, the Court granted the petitioners the right to discovery so that they might establish actual bias, but in confining the scope of the case to discovery, the Court declined to consider whether proof of actual bias is the only means to relief in a case of judicial corruption. See Bracy v. Gramley, 519 U.S. 1074, 117 S.Ct. 726, 136 L.Ed.2d 643 (1997) (granting certiorari in part).
For all of these reasons, I believe that we must vacate the petitioners’ convictions as well as their sentences. The temptation for Maloney to favor the State as a means of hiding and promoting his corruption was present in this case as we know it was in other cases, and there are signs-including the appointment of a felon to represent Bracy, the refusal to continue the penalty hearing notwithstanding the belated disclosure that the State intended to introduce additional murders as an aggravating factor, and the effort to discourage Bracy’s counsel from making a closing argument at the penalty hearing-that suggest Maloney may well have yielded to the temptation. More direct proof of bias is simply unavailable without the cooperation of Maloney or his co-conspirators, none of whom has proven willing or able to provide it.
Although some of my colleagues fear that we will be compounding the wrong that Maloney committed by granting a new trial to petitioners who did not bribe him, I submit that the opposite is true. The right to trial before an impartial judge means nothing if it is not a right that we are willing to enforce. It is hard to see why a new trial is warranted when an honest judge is faced with a financial temptation to favor one party or the other-although it is a temptation he might in fact have resisted (see Turney, Murchison, and Aetna Life)-but not when a corrupt judge is presented with a penal as well as a financial incentive to favor a party. It is *437not enough for us to decry Maloney’s actions as contemptible, appalling, and depraved. Those words ring hollow when, at the same time we utter them, we deem this contemptible, appalling, and depraved man a constitutionally adequate adjudicator. Due process means something, and in my view it means something more than trial and the infliction of the ultimate punishment before the likes of a judicial racketeer.

. This is the only way that I can see to establish a conspiracy to practice compensatory bias in one or more cases without the corrupt judge's own testimony. See ante at 422.

. I would note that Judge Maloney's handling of closing arguments at the guilt/innocence phase of the trial, as well as the capital phase, arguably supports an inference of compensatory bias at work. As the State’s first closing argument built to a conclusion asking the jury to convict the defendants, the prosecutor turned his attention from Collins (whom he had called “a[s] vicious and cold and calculating a killer as the good Lord ever created,” R. 23-5 at 1300) and Bracy (just "as bad,” id. at 1301) to their attorneys. After noting that it was his duty and that of his colleague to represent the State, the prosecutor continued:
It is the responsibility of Mr. Frazin (Collins’ counsel) to represent this killer, and it is the responsibility of Mr. McDonnell (Bra-cy’s attorney) to represent this killer.
Id. at 1335. An objection was overruled. Id. At that point, the prosecutor felt free to commence an attack upon the defense counsels' tactics, encouraging the jury to "think about the facts that these two lawyers get up here and mimic and mock and demean you,” id. at 1338, and suggesting that either McDonnell or Frazin — he wasn’t sure which — "is trying to hoodwink you,” id. at 1354.
Having been given such free rein at the guilt phase of the trial, it comes as little surprise that during closing arguments at the penalty phase, the prosecution argued not only that McDonnell’s criticism of capital punishment was "a slap in every veteran’s face,” R. 23-6 at 1646, as Judge Evans has pointed out, hut also that Bracy and Collins themselves would think a sentence of death fair and appropriate:
I will tell you one thing, ladies and gentlemen of this jury, if you come back with a decision that the death penalty should be imposed, I guarantee you that Roger Collins and William Bracey [sic] won’t feel it is an unfair decision.
Id. at 1654. "Objection to that,” complained McDonnell. Id. "I think that is improper,” echoed Frazin. Id. "Objection overruled,” was Judge Maloney's response. Id.