Legal liability can punish and deter certain types of misconduct. Outside their judicial roles, judges are liable just as other citizens for torts, crimes, breaches of contract, and violations of statutory obligations. Even within their judicial roles, judges can be liable if they act outside of any colorable claim to jurisdiction, if the opposing party seeks only equitable relief against a continuing course of wrongful judicial conduct, or if the judge engages in criminality in office such as bribery or extortion.

Legal liability, however, is far from a complete solution to the problem of bad judges. Much of the conduct in which bad judges engage does not fall into any well-recognized basis for liability. Judges do not owe fiduciary duties to litigants. They are not subject to personal liability if they have a conflict of interest in the proceeding. Similarly, judges owe no personally enforceable duties to avoid erroneous rulings. The remedies for judicial error are procedures for correcting the outcome of the ruling, not personal claims against the judge. Nor will a judge ordinarily be subject to legal liability for being rude or displaying inappropriate behavior on the bench.

Even if a judge’s actions would be a basis for liability if performed by an ordinary person, judicial immunity shields the judge from liability for civil damages for acts undertaken in an official capacity. Judicial immunity applies even when the conduct is malicious or in bad faith. The broad scope of judicial immunity is illustrated by Mireles v. Waco, a classic bad judge case. The trial judge allegedly authorized law enforcement personnel to use excessive force in seizing an attorney who failed to appear at a calendar call. The Supreme Court held that even if excessive force had been used, it did not provide the plaintiff a cause of action; the conduct in question was in aid of the court’s jurisdiction and that was sufficient to establish the judge’s immunity.