Court Opinion

ID: 9490560
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:47:13.674078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:10.511458
License: Public Domain

ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
I agree with my colleagues that the evidence that Judge Close was bribed to acquit Cartalino’s co-defendant is more than sufficient to warrant remand to the district court, where the state will bear the burden of persuading the district judge that the bribe resulted in no actual bias against Cartalino. Ante at 10-11. I also endorse their observation that the circumstances of the bribe in this case may be so compelling as to obviate the need for any further evidence of actual bias. Ante at 11. What I do not endorse is their assertion, unnecessary to the resolution of this case, that the fact that a trial judge was bribed in some cases fails to establish that he was as impartial as the Constitution requires in other cases. See ante at 10. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Bracy v. Gramley, - U.S. -, -, 117 S.Ct. 1793, 1799, 138 L.Ed.2d 97 (1997), establishes that, at minimum, this is a circumstance warranting further inquiry, as my colleagues acknowledge (ante at 10), but nothing in Bracy actually decides whether and under what circumstances a judge’s bribe-taking in other cases will warrant relief in a case where money did not change hands. Nor do I join my colleagues’ suggestion that the trial judge’s acceptance of a bribe to acquit a co-defendant, standing alone, may be insufficient to taint the petitioner’s conviction. Ante at 10. For the reasons I expressed in Bracy v. Gramley, 81 F.3d 684, 699-703 (7th Cir.1996) (Rovner, J., dissenting), I am dubious of post-hoc efforts to compartmentalize the impact of a judge’s bribe-taking, particularly where, as here, the bribe was tendered by a co-defendant tried jointly with the petitioner. In any case, as my colleagues themselves point out (ante at 11), our judgment as to the impact of the bribe should await the development of a complete record; speculative assumptions about the ability of a corrupt judge to remain impartial as to defendants who did not bribe him are therefore inappropriate and wholly gratuitous at this juncture.