Rightwing (and other) Judges Behaving Badly

[pipistrelle]

But, but, but.....isn't refusing to hire someone from a specific college and encouraging others to do the same.....cancelling students from that college?

Of course, but it's canceling the right people to cancel.

[raison de arizona]

I have nothing even remotely civil to say about this.

[bill_g]

Tar and feather that guy.

[RTH10260]

[RTH10260]

West Virginia - a hisiory of questionable judges

[RTH10260]

One very bad judge: Brooklyn Surrogate Judge Harriet Thompson must be kept out of the courtroom

Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News
Mon, December 26, 2022 at 10:00 AM GMT+1

The courts are closed today, but when they reopen tomorrow, Brooklyn Surrogate Judge Harriet Thompson will still be persona non grata in her own courthouse, barred from all nonpublic areas by order of the state chief administrative judge for her extraordinarily hateful words towards gay men, Hispanics, women, West Indians, the overweight and the sick. But perhaps Thompson’s exile, in place since last December, will end in a few weeks.

In a decision filed Thursday, Brooklyn state Supreme Court Justice Karen Rothenberg says that while Thompson can remain stripped of all past, current and future cases in surrogate court for her astoundingly prejudicial statements, the defrocked Thompson should, in 30 days, be returned all “keys, access cards and other means of entry to Unified Court System courts and facilities, as well as any UCS-provided computer or other equipment.”

What’s the point, Justice Rothenberg, to let Thompson back to her chambers and other court offices? Thompson has no docket and no business to conduct, so what is she to do with her keys, access cards and computer? Find more judges, court staff and litigants to insult?

Thompson, who is still collecting her $210,900 salary, sued the state Office of Court Administration in April to get her docket restored. Rothenberg held a hearing in late October and noted that OCA does have the power to assign judges.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/one-very-bad ... 00070.html

(original: Daily News)

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/ri ... r-AA15N778

Riverside County deputy shot dead after car stop in California

Isaiah Cordero, 32, was identified as the deputy who was killed in a statement by Jurupa Valley Mayor Chris Barajas.

"Deputy Cordero was one of our Motor Officers and was well known to city staff, councilmembers, and many of our residents. His service to our community has been positively immeasurable and invaluable," Barajas said.

Barajas said in an earlier statement that the suspect, who was later identified as 44-year-old William McKay, was also killed during the incident.

Bianco said that Cordero was first hired by the department in May 2014 as a correction deputy and spent time working in local jails before he was promoted as a sworn deputy sheriff in February 2018.

Cordero completed motor school in September and was assigned to work in motorcycle enforcement, Bianco said.

"Deputy Cordero learned from his mother the value of serving and helping others. His goal from the day he was hired was to become a motor deputy," he said. "He was a jokester around the station and all of our deputies considered him their little brother."

Bianco detailed McKay's "extensive criminal history" while he lambasted California's judicial system.

"William had an extensive criminal history dating back to before the year 2000, which consisted of kidnapping, robbery, multiple assaults with deadly weapons -- including the stabbing of a California Highway Patrol K9 and many more," Bianco said.

"This terrible tragedy should have been prevented by the legal system."

McKay was convicted of his third strike in November 2021 in a case that involved kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon, Bianco said.

"Instead of sentencing him to 25 years to life, the judge lowered his bail allowing him to be released. He was again arrested for failing to appear at his sentencing and additional criminal charges. That same judge released him again," he said.

"We would not be here today if the judge had done her job."

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

I just noticed the thread's title is about right wing judges. I don't know if she is considered right wing, or if she behaved badly.

Gunman who killed Riverside County deputy should have been jailed on ‘three strikes,’ sheriff says

A Times review of San Bernardino County court records showed that McKay was convicted Nov. 8, 2021, of false imprisonment, evading a peace officer, criminal threats likely to result in death or great bodily injury and receiving stolen property. Evidence included zip ties, duct tape, an ax and gang paraphernalia, according to a court filing.

In that case, McKay was found not guilty of kidnapping and kidnapping to commit robbery or rape. He was also found to be a felon who had serious prior convictions.

After his conviction, McKay’s lawyers sought to strike one of his prior strikes, the records show.

Judge Cara D. Hutson delayed sentencing at least two times after a motion was entered for a new trial. Another judge conducted a custody status hearing Oct. 22 without McKay present.

McKay’s original bail was set at $950,000 in June 2021, court records show. After the verdicts, including his acquittal on kidnapping charges, Hutson reduced his bail to $500,000.

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... upa-valley

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://ballotpedia.org/Cara_D._Hutson

Cara D. Hutson

Nonpartisan
Superior Court of San Bernardino County

Tenure
Present officeholder
Term ends
2023

Elections and appointments Last elected
June 7, 2022

Education
Bachelor's
University of California, Santa Barbara Law
University of San Diego School of Law

Cara D. Hutson is a judge of the Superior Court of San Bernardino County in California. Her current term ends on January 2, 2023.

Hutson won re-election for judge of the Superior Court of San Bernardino County in California outright in the primary on June 7, 2022, after the primary and general election were canceled.

Hutson was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in June 2007.[1]

Education
Hutson received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law.[1]

Career
2007-Present: Judge, Superior Court of San Bernardino County
1994-2007: Attorney, San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office[1]
Elections
2022
See also: Municipal elections in San Bernardino County, California (2022)

Nonpartisan primary election
The primary election was canceled. Cara D. Hutson (Nonpartisan) won the election without appearing on the ballot.

2010
She was re-elected to another six-year term.[2]

[Kriselda Gray]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/ri ... r-AA15N778

Riverside County deputy shot dead after car stop in California

Isaiah Cordero, 32, was identified as the deputy who was killed in a statement by Jurupa Valley Mayor Chris Barajas

That must have been a very powerful statement...

[RTH10260]

When thoughts could declassify kill

[Ben-Prime]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/ri ... r-AA15N778

Riverside County deputy shot dead after car stop in California

Isaiah Cordero, 32, was identified as the deputy who was killed in a statement by Jurupa Valley Mayor Chris Barajas

That must have been a very powerful statement...

Clearly, something right out of the 80s Lynch version of Dune.

[RTH10260]

[raison de arizona]

On North Carolina’s Supreme Court, G.O.P. Justices Move to Reconsider Democratic Rulings
The court’s new majority will rehear two major voting rights cases decided two months ago. The rare move heightens the debate over partisan influences on state courts.

An extraordinary pair of orders by North Carolina’s Republican-controlled Supreme Court is highlighting how the partisan tug of war has pervaded the state’s courts and, by extension, the nation’s.

On Friday, the court moved to rehear two major voting rights cases that it had previously decided, one striking down a gerrymandered map of State Senate districts and another nullifying new voter identification requirements.

Such rehearings by the court are exceedingly rare. In fact, North Carolina’s Supreme Court ordered as many rehearings on Friday as it has in the past three decades. What also made the rehearings exceptional was that the cases had been decided less than two months ago — by a court that, at the time, contained four Democratic and three Republican justices.

The court that voted to rehear the cases has a 5-to-2 Republican majority, courtesy of the party’s sweep of state Supreme Court races in November. And the potential beneficiary of those reviews is the Republican leadership of the state General Assembly, which had both drawn the political map and enacted the voter ID law that the court struck down in December.

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/05/us/n ... =share-url

[bob]

CNN: Misconduct investigation underway after federal judge in California has 13-year-old daughter of defendant handcuffed:

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals is investigating a misconduct allegation against a federal judge who called a 13-year-old girl out of the spectator’s gallery at her father’s supervised release revocation hearing and had her handcuffed and placed in the jury box, according to court documents.

US District Court Judge Roger Benitez paused a February 13 hearing in San Diego to call up the defendant’s teenaged daughter, who was attending one of her father’s hearings for the first time, according to a sentencing memorandum filed by the defendant’s attorneys, which cited a transcript of the proceedings.

* * *

Benitez ordered a marshal to handcuff the girl, who had been crying, and told her to sit in the jury box, according to the memorandum, which was filed February 23. She continued to sob, the document says.

There was a long pause, according to the document, and Benitez then had a marshal take the handcuffs off the girl. But before allowing her to return to her seat, he scolded the girl, called her “an awfully cute young lady” and warned that if she didn’t stay away from drugs she would wind back up in handcuffs, court documents say.

“I think the intent was to embarrass or humiliate her,” said Michele McKenzie, an attorney representing the girl and her mother. “I think that was the very clear message sent to her by someone with tremendous amount of power.”

"For completeness": Dubya nominee.

[bob]

WV Judge Pulls Gun in Courtroom – “and Then it Got Weird”

[raison de arizona]

WV Judge Pulls Gun in Courtroom – “and Then it Got Weird”

https://twitter.com/Jose_Pagliery/statu ... 3490894874

At court once my judge walked out with cowboy boots under his robe. It went poorly for me. I eventually got off on a technicality point of law that was not observed.

[neeneko]

his legal career may be over, but I suspect he has a bright career as a talking head coming... or perhaps politics.

[RTH10260]

Does the NRA still have free funds to support a 2A talk show?

[RTH10260]

Santa Fe judge facing DWI charges now suspended without pay

April 7, 2023

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A Santa Fe County magistrate judge who was arrested over a month ago for DWI has been suspended.

The state Supreme Court issued an order Friday temporarily suspending Magistrate Judge Dev Atma Khalsa without pay. Initially, he was put on indefinite administrative leave with pay pending an investigation by the Judicial Standards Commission.

The court also unsealed filings related to Khalsa’s disciplinary case.

Khalsa’s attorney, Kitren Fischer, declined to immediately comment since she had not spoken with him yet.

In February, Santa Fe police responded to a rollover car crash on Interstate 25. Officers found Khalsa standing outside his car. His breath also emitted the smell of alcohol and his speech was slurred, according to authorities.

Khalsa was transported to a hospital but was uncooperative and refused to submit to a blood or chemical test.

He was booked on suspicion of aggravated driving while intoxicated and driving with an expired license and then released the same day.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges in March.

Khalsa began his first term last year and previously worked as prosecutor in the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office. Police said Khalsa didn’t appear to have any other DWI charges on his record.



https://apnews.com/article/judge-santa- ... 33f61181a0

[pipistrelle]

Looks more like a ZZ Top reject than a judge.

[RTH10260]

Missouri judge who jailed kids in custody dispute must face dad’s lawsuit, court rules

BY LUKE NOZICKA
JUNE 27, 2023 11:07 AM

In a rare decision, an appeals court ruled that a southwest Missouri judge can’t claim immunity in a federal lawsuit that accuses him of putting two children in jail in 2019 during a custody dispute involving their parents.

The decision from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came in a lawsuit brought by the children’s father against Eric Eighmy, an associate circuit judge in Taney County who was first elected to the bench in 2014. In the lawsuit, Eighmy is accused of personally jailing the kids without probable cause.

The appeals court’s ruling means that Eighmy must face the federal lawsuit filed in 2021 by D. Bart Rockett, who alleges the judge jailed his children for about an hour in Forsyth, Missouri, after they told him they did not want to go live with their mother.

Eighmy is also accused of later issuing orders for the children to be picked up in Louisiana, where they were living with their father, which led to them being held in “solitary confinement” for two days at a juvenile detention center.




https://www.kansascity.com/news/politic ... 72376.html

[bob]

Missouri judge who jailed kids in custody dispute must face dad’s lawsuit, court rules

This is surprising considering judicial immunity and qualified immunity make it incredibly difficult to sue judges, but:

Eighmy, no longer wearing his judge’s robe, attempted to intervene, according to Rockett’s lawsuit. He took the kids to a conference room and allegedly told them they needed to leave Hollywood — where they had since moved — so they could grow up “normal.” When they continued to protest the custody agreement, the judge apparently took the children to jail.

If the judge had merely ordered their arrests (for not complying with the custody agreement), the judge (personally) likely would have been immune.

[chancery]

Judges don't always wear robes, of course. I remember Judge Lasker, a revered SDNY judge, was dressed in a business suit when he heard a long argument on a motion to dismiss a massive antitrust and Commodity Exchange Act case. A reasonably big deal, with dozens of big firm lawyers appearing.

And I've heard that some family court judges don't wear robes when speaking directly with children, in an effort to seem less threatening and to obtain their trust.

That doesn't seem to be what was in this judge's mind, but I'm puzzled that ... well, getting around judicial immunity is hard, and I guess it's reasonable to use not wearing robes as a factor in determining that a judge had acted ultra vires.

[raison de arizona]

I'm struggling with the concept that young children were put in jail and threatened with foster care simply because they wanted to live with their father and not their mother. I dunno. Maybe the dad is a bad dude, but nothing in the story said anything like that.