In 1972, roughly 10 years before the small Maryland party where Christine Blasey Ford alleges she was assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh when they were teenagers, a 25-year-old man named Bryan R. Hedges, who would later become a New York State Family Court judge, sexually abused his deaf 5-year-old niece.

The claim against Hedges was not made to authorities until 40 years after the event, at which point he had been on the bench for 27 years. His now-adult niece, who struggled for decades with the traumatic consequences of the abuse, summoned the courage to come forward in 2012. The investigation, which eventually led to the removal of Hedges from his position, tore fissures into her family. But it resulted in exactly what we should hope for in terms of holding alleged perpetrators of sexual misconduct accountable: a fair and thorough ethics investigation.

In an ideal world, this is how the allegations against Kavanaugh, which he vehemently denies, would be handled. The only problem? The federal court system has no equivalent to the independent state commissions that conduct disciplinary hearings and impose sanctions on offending judges. This needs to change.