Scholarly Commons @ UNLV Boyd Law Scholarly Works Faculty Scholarship 2011 In Praise of Procedurally Centered Judicial Disqualification - and a Stronger Conception of the Appearance Standard: Better Acknowledging and Adjusting to Cognitive Bias, Spoliation and Perceptual Realities Jeffrey W. Stempel University of Nevada, Las Vegas -- William S. Boyd School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub Part of the Judges Commons Recommended Citation Stempel, Jeffrey W., "In Praise of Procedurally Centered Judicial Disqualification - and a Stronger Conception of the Appearance Standard: Better Acknowledging and Adjusting to Cognitive Bias, Spoliation and Perceptual Realities" (2011). Scholarly Works. 748. https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub/748 This Article is brought to you by the Scholarly Commons @ UNLV Boyd Law, an institutional repository administered by the Wiener-Rogers Law Library at the William S. Boyd School of Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. In Praise of Procedurally Centered Judicial Disqualification-and a Stronger Conception of the Appearance Standard: Better Acknowledging and Adjusting to Cognitive Bias, Spoliation, and Perceptual Realities Jeffrey W. Stempel* I. FACING REALITY: JUDGING AND JUDGES IN THE REAL WORLD .......................................... 740 A. Unconscious Bias and Insufficient Self-Awareness ........ 740 B. The Inevitable Socio-PoliticalElement ofAdjudication ............................. .... ... 750 C. Spoliation Concerns ................... ...... 753 1. The Inherent Difficulty of Demonstrating the Impact of a Tainted Judge and the Harm of Harmless Error Analysis. ....................... ........ 753 2. The Inherent Difficulty of Uncovering and Demonstrating Bias or Prejudice in Judges............764 II. THE PROMISE OF PROCEDURAL PROTECTIONS ...... ....... 767 A. Per Se DisqualificationStandards (Without Exception) as Useful ProceduralProtections ............ ...... 767 1.