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Public Confidence In The Courts In The Internet Age: The Ethical Landscape For Judges In The Post-Watergate Age, Carolyn A. Dubay

Campbell Law Review

Promoting and protecting public confidence in government institutions is central to continued faith in the rule of law. As a result, when personal scandals or internal failures threaten public trust in government institutions, policy makers have been quick to respond with new measures to increase accountability for misconduct. In the twentieth century, the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s led to significant changes in accountability for misconduct by high-level public officials and in the legal profession generally. For judges, in the years just prior to Watergate, high-profile scandals involving federal judges also led to significant changes in the regulation of …