Justice Margaret Workman
The recent disciplinary actions against Circuit Court Judges Maryclaire Akers and Tim Sweeney for their public criticism of the failures of child abuse and neglect system represent a troubling misunderstanding of judicial responsibility and a dangerous prioritization of institutional comfort over child safety.
These sanctions don’t protect judicial integrity — they undermine it by silencing the very voices most qualified to identify systemic problems harming and endangering the most vulnerable children.
Having served as a circuit court judge and a Supreme Court justice for 30 years, I am deeply familiar with the immense frustration that judges encounter on a daily basis when children in desperate need of intervention in their lives appear before them and the DHHR fails to provide services which state law mandates and often even ignores court orders.
The judges who were sanctioned deserve support, not chastisement. Their willingness to speak difficult truths about child welfare failures represents exactly the kind of judicial courage that should be encouraged, not suppressed.
The Supreme Court of Appeals has held that any child who appears before a court is a ward of that court and that child abuse and neglect is the highest priority of the judicial system.
Yet every day, judges around the state witness firsthand the consequences of an overburdened, under-resourced child welfare system. They see children returned to (or not removed from) dangerous homes due to inadequate investigations and often re-abused in foster care. They see the results of caseworkers carrying impossible caseloads and watch as bureaucratic delays leave children in limbo for months or even years.
Neither Judges Akers nor Sweeney revealed the names of any children or otherwise violated their right to confidentiality. Instead, they sought to cast the sunshine of public light on these issues.
In so doing, they were not abandoning judicial neutrality — they were fulfilling their deepest obligation to protect children. Children do not have lobbyists to seek a fair allocation of state assets for their protection, so judicial officers publicly identifying these systemic failures is one of the few ways any pressure can be applied to state authorities who continue to short-change children.
The disciplinary sanctions in these cases actually undermine judicial independence by making judges afraid to speak out about the crisis the state abuse and neglect/juvenile justice system is in and creates a perverse situation where the institutions most in need of reform are protected from criticism by the very people best positioned to identify needed changes.
By sanctioning judges who spoke publicly about child welfare failures, disciplinary bodies have sent a chilling message to the entire judiciary: keep quiet about systemic problems, even when children are suffering and even dying as a result. This enforced silence serves no legitimate interest in judicial independence or impartiality. Instead, it protects failing institutions from accountability while leaving the most vulnerable children voiceless and in danger.
Workman is a retired state Supreme Court justice and circuit court judge.
