In re Reddin

This disciplinary case raises two questions: (1) what the appropriate standard should be to measure whether a judge’s personal behavior presents an appearance of impropriety; and, (2) whether Respondents — two sitting judges — violated that standard by regularly dining in public with a longstanding friend who was under indictment for official misconduct.

*223To the public, judges embody the court system. As a result, their conducts — both on and off the bench — can promote as well as erode confidence in the Judiciary. For that reason, the ethical principles that guide judges’ behavior extend not…