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Chief Judge Pryor's Non-Order in the Eleanor Ross Judicial Misconduct Proceedings: Why It Is So Problematic and What Might Be Done About It

A guest post from Professor Arthur Hellman.

Josh Blackman | 6.18.2026 10:00 PM

I have written quite a bit about Judge Ross's extrajudicial activities. I've also written how the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Council, and Chief Judge Pryor in particular, have handled this issue. Last Friday, I raised some questions about how Judge Pryor addressed Judge Ross's apology letter:

How does Chief Judge Pryor have this authority? Did the other (unnamed) members of the Council agree to this plan? Moreover, it seems that Pryor decided not to investigate Ross further based on her making her private reprimand into a public reprimand. How does he have that authority? Judge Ross would have never consented to any reprimand if it was public. Judge Pryor nullified the cornerstone of the Judicial Council's agreement with Judge Ross.

I am thankful that Professor Arthur Hellman addresses some of these questions in the following guest post.

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The judicial misconduct proceedings involving Federal District Judge Eleanor Ross of Atlanta continue to generate controversy, much of it fueled by a blockbuster expose published by the New York Times on June 11. In this guest post I'll flag seven (mostly) procedural irregularities and suggest what might be done to clean up the mess that the proceedings have become. These points may seem technical, and to some extent they are, but many of them concern a basic question: who decides? The post assumes general familiarity with prior developments, summarized in the Times story.

A. Bypassing the Judicial Council

The Feb. 11, 2026, order of the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Council (incorporating the findings and recommendations of the Council's Special Committee, which investigated the matter) stated: "Any apology [issued in connection with the sanction] should be sufficiently specific so as to make clear to the recipient the sexual misconduct for which the judge is apologizing." That order was made public on May 22, when the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States (JC&D Committee) issued its order affirming it.

On June 8, four of Judge Ross's former law clerks (whose unease about the sexual activity taking place in the judge's chambers led to the initial complaint) wrote to the Judicial Council stating that they did not believe that the three-sentence apology letters they had received complied with the provision just quoted. The law clerks' letter went to Chief Judge William Pryor, who wrote to Judge Ross on June 10 asking her to respond to the "allegations." He specifically asked her to "state whether [she] failed to send adequate letters of apology to [her] former law clerks." He implied that if her response was not satisfactory,........

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