Kathy E <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Today is national Law day here is the top 10 list of the most amazing
antics by judges:
Richard Jones: 'I Was Venting'
"Gazillion pengos" was among the bail amounts set by Douglas County
Judge Richard M. Jones, and was one of 17 charges Nebraska's Judicial
Qualifications Commission investigated against him. He testified that it
was a matter of opinion whether the amounts he set were nonsensical and
added that when he signed court documents as "Snow White" or "Judge
Crater," he was just keeping court personnel alert. It was a simple
disagreement--not bald defiance--that led the judge to perform two
weddings after he'd been notified that the Supreme Court had suspended
him, he contended. The ceremonies were held around noon, before a state
trooper driving down from the capitol had officially served the judge
with the suspension papers.
He has denied more serious charges, among them having improper meetings
with a handful of probationers and touching the breast of a female
colleague in an elevator. In an Eastertime interview with the Omaha
World Herald that was scheduled after the judge sought the counsel of an
out-of-state public relations specialist, he complained of "public
crucifixion" and said the female colleague, as well as a state senator,
were out to get him.
None of this, of course, explains his sending an anonymous threat to a
male colleague who sits on the Douglas County bench. The note led the
other judge to seek and get round-the-clock police protection. Judge
Jones termed it a "prank" that went wrong and said it was unfair to
bring it up, given that he and the note's recipient had long since made
up. More recently, however, lighted firecrackers were thrown into the
office of the same colleague, and Judge Jones admitted he did the
tossing.
"I was venting," he testified.
Although the commission didn't find that all 17 charges had been proven,
there was enough wrong, the commission concluded, that Judge Jones
should be removed from the bench permanently. The state Supreme Court
has set hearings for June, so while Richard "Deacon" Jones still has a
crack at getting back on the bench in time for Law Day 1999, he's
sitting this one out.
James Barr: 'Lack of Social Graces'
Another judge who's banking on his Supreme Court to reinstate him is
James Barr, who was suspended last December from Texas' 337th District.
If it weren't for politicking against him by deputy sheriffs, he
maintains, the bundle of complaints against him would have never gotten
the attention of Texas' Commission on Judicial Conduct.
The judge purportedly engaged in a less-than-Solomonic tug-of-war in a
courthouse corridor, trying to pull a defendant who had been acquitted
moments before toward an elevator while two deputies pulled on the other
arm trying to keep the man in custody long enough to process him for
other warrants.
The commission unanimously concluded that it isn't necessary to support
your local sheriff to condemn a judge's use of "self help." More
ominously, the commission found other examples of improper battling with
the sheriff, including the judge's having had a deputy jailed overnight.
But it was Judge Barr's treatment of three women prosecutors--his
"all-babe court," as he reportedly called it--that cinched his ouster.
A tribunal of seven appellate judges confirmed that crude comments were
made to the women both in court and at a social gathering. "You are so
nice to look at, if you leave, all I'll have to look at all afternoon is
swinging dicks," the tribunal found he told one assistant district
attorney. He told another that she must be "on your period" because she
was carrying a purse. And, still according to the tribunal, he curled
his index finger to summon one of the women and then joked, "I wanted to
see if I could make you come with one finger."
Not helping his defense was a comment to an unidentified lawyer: "I feel
like coming across the bench and slapping the crap out of you."
The tribunal tried to understand what it termed the judge's "lack of
social graces," giving as possible explanations "a misguided sense of
humor, insecurity, an inability to relate on an acceptable basis with
individuals of the opposite sex, or some other maladjustment." But it
concluded that it didn't matter what the problem was; he was out.
Joseph Troisi: A Bite Out of Crime
Joseph Troisi's career was ended not for threatening to slap a lawyer,
but for actually biting a defendant.
Judge Troisi was a highly regarded member of the West Virginia bench
last June when he apparently lost it at a bail hearing and made dental
history along with the likes of boxer Mike Tyson, sports announcer Marv
Albert and wayward actor Christian Slater.
The account given by observers was that when he denied the bail request
of defendant William Witten, Mr. Witten mumbled curses. The judge then
reportedly left the bench, took off his robes, exchanged words with the
defendant, jostled him and bit his nose severely enough to make it
bleed. Prosecuted for criminal battery, the judge entered a no-contest
plea and served five days.
Regarding his seat on the circuit courts for Pleasants, Ritchie and
Doddridge counties, Judge Troisi cut a deal with the state's Judicial
Investigating Commission (of which he had been a member). He agreed to
resign, and to get counseling for "impulse control."
Judges who dig in, like Judges Jones and Barr, outnumber those who
resign.
Ralph H. Baldwin: Judge 12-Pack
A municipal judge for just three months in Lakewood, Wash., Judge
Baldwin disappeared while jurors were deliberating in a drunken driving
case. When he returned, it was with a 12-pack. Among the comments
attributed to him, while still wearing his robes: "Stay for a cool
one" (directed to attorneys, court staff and jurors) and "I'll deny it
if any of you repeat it." The assistant city attorney did repeat it,
albeit after having a beer.
The judge said the account was essentially accurate. His only dispute
was with those who reported that he carried a partially full can of beer
to his car with the announcement, "I might as well drink and drive. I do
it all the time anyway." He said that the can was really empty.
It was a poor attempt at humor and it was stupid, he later acknowledged.
"When I thought about it, I thought, 'Oh, my God, you fool.' "
Not that it was inexplicable, he insisted. It had been a tough trial,
and he had hoped that by offering refreshments he could entice jurors
into staying and discussing the proceedings with counsel. And he did
help clean up the mess.
Salvador Collazo: 'Outright Untruthful'
Salvador Collazo, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge, was undone not so
much by the lurid note that he passed to his law clerk regarding an
intern ("Ralph S.--She has some knockers--Look at those nipples sticking
out") as by his attempts at extrication.
The judge unconvincingly maintained the note referred to a picture in a
Penthouse magazine, and he tried to finger the aforementioned Ralph S.
(who had saved the note and passed it along to authorities) as the one
who'd brought in the magazine. Worse still, said a Court of Appeals
panel that rejected Judge Collazo's plea for leniency, he tried to
mislead a governor's screening committee that was considering promoting
him, by telling them he was not under investigation. As another example
of "evasive, deceitful, and outright untruthful behavior,'' the panel
noted, when the counsel to the state Senate Judiciary Committee said
he'd lied to her, he denied it under oath.
June L. Johnson: Fast, Faster
June L. Johnson, was known as efficient and hardworking during the 14
years she sat on the bench in Broward County, Fla.--except that the
efficiency part may have been overrated.
The state's Supreme Court ordered her removed from the bench in April
1997 for backdating the convictions of dozens of drunk drivers during an
18-month period in 1994 and 1995. Witnesses said she'd labeled the
deals, which effectively undermined the state's mandatory six-month
drivers' license suspensions for drunk driving, "Quantum Leap,''
after her favorite TV show.
Her attorneys argued the elements of classic ticket-fixing were absent:
that is, she wasn't taking bribes or helping friends. But she did have
an agenda, the Judicial Qualifications Commission maintained: making
herself look good by clearing up her court backlog.
Joseph Edwards: Hardworking
Joseph Edwards, a superior court judge from Muncie, Ind., kept his
part-time legal practice in one county--he was also described as
hardworking by a former law partner--after he'd accepted full-time
employment as a judge in another county.
It wasn't that, however, or his subsequent criminal indictment for
forgery that the state's Judicial Qualification Commission cited in
January when it recommended he be removed from the bench (a
recommendation affirmed a month later by a state Supreme
Court-appointed panel). Rather, the commission objected to his presiding
over his girlfriend's child custody case.
The commissioners also found that he'd traded sex for legal services
while he was still practicing law.
In a twist that might be of interest to other states, the panel
suggested that Judge Edwards, who has been suspended with pay from his
$95,000-a-year job since June 1997, reimburse the state for his salary.
Bill Lowery: Shouting the 'N' Word
Bill Lowery, a justice of the peace in Irving, Texas, responded with
shock last February when the Dallas Morning News called to tell him that
the state Supreme Court had removed him.
The state's judicial conduct commission and, following its
recommendation, the court, cited a public shouting match with a parking
lot attendant whom he called a "nigger" after the man refused to let him
park free.
The judicial conduct authorities also didn't like it that he had staged
an ad hoc court session in an auto repair shop (the dispute was over
some work done on an engine, and since everyone was present, he said, it
made sense to swear them all in).
But what was "most egregious" was what happened after he was ordered to
take a special course aimed at correcting his behavior: The court said
that he tried to fake his attendance.
Lyne Ranson: Buggin' Out
Lyne Ranson resigned as a Kanawha Circuit judge last summer as part of
an agreement with the U.S. attorney in West Virginia to drop a federal
inquiry into her alleged bugging of her estranged (and now former)
husband's law office.
She never quite said she did it, just that she "assumed responsibility"
for a sequence of events that led to someone else's buying and planting
the illegal devices. It all happened in the midst of "domestic turmoil,"
she explained, and one reason she was stepping down was that her doctors
had warned her to avoid stress.
The most remarkable part? The devices were so unsophisticated, say
witnesses, that they were attached to timers openly plugged into wall
sockets
--
Kathy E
"I can only please one person a day, today is NOT your day, and tomorrow
isn't looking too good for you either"
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