2015—“Judicial-identity disorder” is a condition that afflicts judges who experience significant discontent with the role they were assigned when they took office. JID typically manifests itself in judicial decisions that are inconsistent with the judicial role and in behavior that reflects a severe and pervasive discomfort with neutrally applying the law. Unfortunately, no effective treatment for the condition is currently available.
Federal district judge Jon S. Tigar, appointed by President Obama in 2013 to the Northern District of California, quickly joins the ranks of judges manifesting symptoms of JID, as he issues an order ruling that a California prisoner, Jeffrey Norsworthy, is likely to succeed on the merits of his claim that prison officials have violated his Eighth Amendment rights by not providing him sex-reassignment surgery. Tigar orders the state to “take all of the actions reasonably necessary to provide Norsworthy sex reassignment surgery as promptly as possible.”