Was Judge Messitte’s ordering the Plaintiffs to dragoon a second defendant into the case a breach of judicial ethics? I really do not know. But it is odd. Imagine one day finding yourself personally named as a defendant in some ongoing lawsuit, not because the plaintiff decided to drag you into the case in relation to some newly discovered evidence, but rather because the judge ordered the plaintiff to sue you before any discovery revealed any specific wrongdoing on your part. We don’t usually imagine that federal judges ought to chase down would-be plaintiffs, and then proceed to advise and urge (and order) them to sue people that the plaintiff had expressed no interest in suing. But that is basically what happened here.
Read the whole thing.
(Part III of this series of posts is here.)