Council finds Alaska federal judge committed misconduct with relationship, hostile workplace, lies • Alaska Beacon

U.S. District Judge Joshua Kindred violated the law governing the conduct for federal judges by maintaining a hostile workplace for law clerks, having a “sexualized relationship” with a clerk, and lying about it to a senior judge and investigators, a federal judicial council concluded.

Kindred resigned effective Monday, after the judicial council for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals requested his resignation in a May 23 order. Kindred had been nominated by President Donald Trump in November 2019 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in February 2020. 

The order followed the work of a special committee, which found that Kindred “created a hostile work environment for his law clerks by engaging in unwanted, offensive, and abusive conduct, and treating the law clerks in a demonstrably egregious and hostile manner.”

Kindred also “engaged in misconduct by having an inappropriately sexualized relationship with one of his law clerks during her clerkship and shortly after clerkship while she practiced as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Alaska,” according to  the order. 

The order said Kindred lied to Chief Circuit Judge Mary H. Murguia, the special committee and the council after Murguia received a complaint about him in November 2022. Kindred maintained he “never had any sexual contact” with the clerk, but admitted to it when asked under oath in April 2024.

Murguia noted in a news release that the judiciary is entrusted to govern itself.

“In all respects, this was a serious and sensitive matter,” she said. “I thank the witnesses who provided information, understanding fully how difficult that may have been. In my role as Chief, I will continue to ensure that our judges are held to the highest standards.”

The council held that Kindred’s behavior might constitute grounds for impeachment under the U.S. Constitution and that he violated the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act rules for judges. It ordered that he be publicly reprimanded and it requested he resign. 

Kindred held one of only three U.S. District Court judgeships designated for Alaska; with one of the positions already vacant, his resignation leaves Judge Sharon Gleason as the only active judge, though four senior judges in Alaska can also take cases. 

The order recounts how Kindred used crude, sexual language with law clerks in both his chambers and in text messages. After telling a clerk that an assistant U.S. attorney sent him nude photographs, he later indicated that he felt insecure about sharing the information, writing, “But you don’t think I suck? Do I give off a desperate for attention vibe?”

He engaged in 278 pages of text messages with one clerk, with only a small fraction having any relationship to her legitimate job duties, according to the investigation.

A former clerk said Kindred attempted to initiate a romantic encounter, which he denied, alleging she had initiated it. 

“However, these denials were belied by documentary evidence and, as revealed later during Judge Kindred’s testimony to the Judicial Council, by Judge Kindred’s own admissions,” according to the order.

In a separate incident, the clerk said after Kindred grabbed her breast, “I like grabbed his like forearm, and I remember thinking like he felt really strong and I tried to like pull his arm off of me. … I just remember thinking like there’s nothing I can do about this, like this is about to happen,” before he performed oral sex on her. 

In his account of the same evening, Kindred said there were no physical or sexual interactions. But in a later text exchange, Kindred wrote that he “didn’t imagine your exit interview would involve that much oral.” When asked by the committee about the text, Kindred repeated his denial and said he could not provide an explanation for the text. During a later hearing, he admitted that he had a sexual encounter with the clerk, despite previous denials. 

In its finding on whether this interaction was consensual, the judicial found that the record was inconclusive, but that engaging in sexual encounters with an assistant U.S. attorney and former clerk within weeks of her leaving the clerkship, while failing to disclose the relationship, was irresponsible and improper.

In a nine-page response to the special committee’s report on his conduct, Kindred said that he had only a few weeks to observe other judges before the courthouse began shutting down due to the pandemic, and that for his first year as a judge, the clerk at the center of the allegations was “often the only person I would interact with face to face.” Kindred said the clerk had made false allegations against others in the past, “implying he was a victim of that same circumstance,” according to the order.

The council found that Kindred did not hear cases the former clerk worked on while at the U.S. Attorney’s office, and that he did not retaliate against individuals for reporting his behavior.

In its findings of misconduct, the judicial council noted that Kindred repeatedly said he had no “sinister intent” in his relationships with law clerks, but added that federal rules for judicial conduct are not framed in terms of intent.