U.S. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez, a prominent jurist known for overturning California gun control measures, was censured Wednesday for judicial misconduct over a 2023 incident , when he ordered the 13-year-old daughter of a drug defendant to be handcuffed in open court even though the girl was not charged with any crime.
The decision does not remove Benitez from the bench or disqualify him from presiding over high-profile civil cases — including potential future litigation over state gun laws — but it does limit his ability to serve in criminal cases role. Benitez has denied any wrongdoing.
A rare rebuke for a sitting federal judge comes after an attorney for the girl’s father filed a complaint, prompting an investigation and review by the U.S. Judicial Commission of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, a panel of senior judges that oversees cases across the U.S. Federal Court.
In its order on Wednesday, the committee found that Benítez’s conduct was “abusive and harassing”, exceeded his authority and undermined “public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”
“First, it exceeds the authority of a district judge to impose handcuffs on an observer during a hearing who is not behaving in a threatening or disruptive manner,” the panel wrote. “Second, creating the spectacle of a minor child in the courtroom would degrade friends, The family and the public support their loved one’s wishes at sentencing.”
The panel noted that Benitez had insisted throughout the investigation that he had done nothing wrong and argued that his behavior towards the girl came after the girl’s father lamented that she had gone down the wrong path, including experimenting with drugs. With “the best intentions”.
The panel found that Benítez ordered a court bailiff to handcuff the girl, a tactic some witnesses described as a “scare” tactic. The girl burst into tears.
The panel rejected all of Benitez’s arguments about the reasonableness of his actions, calling them “unpersuasive” and criticized his attempts to blame the incident on others, including the public defender who filed the complaint. It also rejected Benitez’s assertion that the investigation was driven by “public pressure”.
The panel found no wrongdoing in the second case before them, in which Benítez addressed another defendant’s children from the bench.
Under the panel’s order, Benítez has “senior status,” meaning he has given up some of his duties as a judge but is still hearing cases and has declined to hear new criminal cases.
Still, the panel ordered Benítez to accept only non-criminal cases for the next three years. During the same time frame, criminal defendants who had certain sentencing options before Benítez could ask him to recuse themselves, the report said.
Several of Benitez’s major rulings in civil gun cases are currently being appealed to the Ninth Circuit, including his ruling that overturned California’s assault weapons ban and high-capacity magazine ban as unconstitutional.
