Code of Silence: Sexual Misconduct by Federal Judges, the Secret System That Protects Them, and the Women Who Blew the Whistle

by Lise Olsen

Overview

Winner of the 2021 IRE Book Award

Winner of the 2022 Texas Institute of Letters Carr P. Collins Award for Best Book of Nonfiction

In the age of #MeToo, learn how brave whistleblowers have dared to lift the federal court’s veil of secrecy to expose powerful judges who appear to defy laws they have sworn to uphold

Code of Silence tells the story of federal court employee Cathy McBroom, who had to flee her job as a case manager in Galveston, Texas, after enduring years of sexual harassment and assault by her boss—US District Judge Samuel Kent. Following a decade of firsthand reporting at the Houston Chronicle, investigative reporter Lise Olsen charts McBroom’s assault and the aftermath, when McBroom was thrust into the role of whistleblower to denounce a federal judge.

What Olsen discovered by investigating McBroom’s story and other federal judicial misconduct matters nationwide was shocking. With the help of other federal judges, Kent was being protected by a secretive court system that has long tolerated or ignored complaints about corruption, sexism, and sexual misconduct—enabling him to remain in office for years. Other powerful judges accused of judicial misconduct were never investigated and remain in power or retired with full pay, such as US Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski and Kozinski’s mentee, Brett Kavanaugh.

McBroom’s ultimate triumph is a rare story of redemption and victory as Judge Kent became the first and only federal judge to be impeached for sexual misconduct. Olsen also weaves in narratives of other brave women across the country who, at great personal risk, have reported federal judges to reveal how sexual harassment and assault occur elsewhere inside the federal court system. The accounts of the women and their allies who are still fighting for reforms are moving, intimate, and inspiring—including whistleblowers and law professors like Leah Litman, Emily Murphy, and novelist Heidi Bond, who emerged to denounce Kozinski in 2017. A larger group of women—and men—banded together to form a group called Law Clerks for Accountability, which is continuing to push for more reforms to the courts’ secretive complaint review system.

Code of Silence also reveals the role the press plays in holding systems of power in check. Kent would not have been charged had it not been for Olsen’s reporting and the Houston Chronicle’s commitment to the story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807008676
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	10/26/2021
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	545,538
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Lise Olsen is a senior investigative reporter whose work has appeared in the Texas Observer, InsideClimate News, and the Houston Chronicle, as well as in documentaries on CNN and A&E. Olsen has more than 20 years’ experience specializing primarily in crime, corruption, worker safety, and human rights. She has extensively covered federal judicial corruption sagas, including the initially secret sexual assault complaint and subsequent impeachment of a federal judge, as well as other misconduct cases. Her reports have inspired laws and reforms, spurred official investigations and prosecutions, restored names to unidentified murder victims, and freed dozens of wrongfully held prisoners. Follow her on Twitter (@lisedigger).

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE
The Tip

PART I: CASTES OF THE COURTS

CHAPTER 1
An Awkward Encounter

CHAPTER 2
Flight

CHAPTER 3
Kings of the Courts

CHAPTER 4
Chambers and Secrets

CHAPTER 5
The Reluctant Whistleblower

PART II: THE SECRET SYSTEM

CHAPTER 6
The Complaint

CHAPTER 7
Her Honor

CHAPTER 8
A Botched Investigation

INTERLUDE
The Exposé

CHAPTER 9
A Corrupt Judge

PART III: JUDGMENT DAY FOR JUDGES

CHAPTER 10
The Keeper of Secrets

CHAPTER 11
A Criminal Probe

CHAPTER 12
Person B

CHAPTER 13
The Path to Impeachment

CHAPTER 14
Another Encounter with Judge Kozinski

CHAPTER 15
Calls for Reform—and a Backlash

EPILOGUE
The Quilter

Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

08/09/2021

Journalist Olsen debuts with a dismaying and deeply reported exposé of how the U.S. federal court system enables eccentric and abusive behavior by judges who are appointed for life and can only be removed by congressional impeachment. Olsen centers the narrative on Cathy McBroom, a case manager in Galveston, Tex., who endured years of sexual harassment and assault by her boss, U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent, before lodging the complaint that led to his impeachment, resignation, and imprisonment in 2009. (He’s one of only 15 federal judges to be impeached in more than 200 years.) Fearful of losing her job and violating the oath she’d taken to protect court secrets, McBroom compartmentalized the abuse and tried to avoid being alone with Kent. Though she eventually confided in a colleague who was also being harassed, the atmosphere of abuse divided rather than united the women. Olsen lucidly describes the history and structure of the federal court system, weaves in accusations made against former Ninth Circuit judge Alex Kozinski and other federal jurists; and documents reformers’ calls for enhanced whistleblower protections and a “stronger central mechanism” to handle complaints. This is an enraging and eye-opening account of corruption and abuse within the halls of justice. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

In Code of Silence, Lise Olsen, one of journalism’s finest investigative reporters, exposes what goes on in the most secret of chambers, showing how far too often, and for far too long, federal judges have been able to abuse their extraordinary power with impunity. She cracks the code. The result is a story of shameful failure in the highest reaches.”
—Ken Armstrong, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and coauthor of Unbelievable

“At once heartbreaking, infuriating, and heroic, Code of Silence is a masterpiece of #MeToo investigative journalism that takes apart gross injustice within the court system and the judges who rule over it—and likewise rule over the women who support them. Olsen’s writing is as propulsive as it is informative as she teaches readers why judges are nearly invincible and how women who suffer abuse at their hands are without recourse. As a journalist, Olsen is tenacious in her pursuit of judicial wrongdoing and sensitive in the way she paints the women who are at the center of her endeavors. This new entry in the #MeToo genre is not to be missed.”
—Donna Freitas, author of Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention

From the Publisher

★ 10/22/2021

Investigative reporter Olsen tells the story of Cathy McBroom, a victim of sexual misconduct and assault at the hands of her employer, U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent. McBroom's legal battle ended in a rare triumph—by some estimates, most sexual assaults go unreported or unaddressed. Thanks to McBroom's testimony and the tenacious sleuthing of Olsen, who reported on the case for years at the Houston Chronicle, Kent became the first and thus far only federal judge to be impeached for sexual misconduct. Including narratives of other victims of assault and excerpts from Olsen's reporting, this book exposes the secretive court system that protects federal judges against claims of corruption and sexual abuse. An expert journalist, Olsen weaves a nonlinear timeline, sharing minute details and making a complex, often unwieldy topic accessible even to readers with little background on the subject. And though the research and reporting are meticulous, the book is also deeply personal, and the stories of Kent's victim are rendered with empathy. VERDICT This captivating, eloquent book will resonate with anyone seeking justice and accountability; give to readers of Deborah Tuerkheimer's Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers.—Alana Quarles, Fairfax County P.L., Alexandria, VA

Library Journal

2021-07-22
An investigative reporter reveals flaws in how Americans hold federal judges accountable for sexual misconduct and shows how whistleblowers have brought some to justice.

Rogue federal judges have caused scandals at least since George Washington appointee John Pickering became the first to be removed from office by the Senate, which acted after he’d repeatedly taken to the bench “in a state of total intoxication” or mental “derangement.” Since then, secretive disciplinary procedures and toothless remedies (allowing quiet resignations with full pensions) have enabled further sins documented in alarming detail in this exposé. Olsen focuses on hair-raising abuses by Samuel Bristow Kent of the Southern District of Texas, the first judge impeached by the House of Representatives for sexual misconduct he lied about. He resigned rather than stand trial in the Senate. Two female court employees had alleged that, among other types of sexual assault or harassment, Kent tried to force them to perform oral sex on him in a federal courthouse—a charge his lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, attempted to refute by claiming his client suffered from erectile dysfunction. Olsen shows how—with Kent’s accusers understandably reluctant to go public with intimate experiences—she helped to break the story open in the Houston Chronicle, leading to a public outcry that contributed to his downfall. She also offers abundant evidence of egregious missteps by other federal judges, including Alex Kozinski, a mentor to Brett Kavanaugh. The writing here tends toward journalese (a whistleblower is “a sharply dressed soccer mom” and William Rehnquist, “the balding Wisconsin native”), but Olsen describes a serious oversight problem with vigor and credibility. She also gives deserved credit to courageous whistleblowers who were doubly victimized—first by their abusers and then by a legal system that required them to endure the pain of public exposure to obtain justice.

A well-documented exposé of a broken system for policing errant federal judges.

Kirkus Reviews