JUDGE ROBIN CARROLL:
Suspension recommended.
(South Arkansas Community
College photo.)
The state Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission has recommended that Circuit Judge Robin Carroll of El Dorado be suspended without pay for 60 days for multiple instances of ethical misconduct.
He has agreed to the recommended sanction, which is up to the Arkansas Supreme Court, rather than contest it.
The 18-page report from David Sachar,
director of the commission, includes a finding of bias in handling
cases involving a deputy sheriff that he told the sheriff should be
fired. He announced in court he’d dismiss cases involving the deputy.
Another finding concerns Carroll’s attempt to exert improper
influence over Game and Fish Commission cases. He tried to get cases
dismissed that were filed against people he knew in other courts.
He also was faulted for lack of “competence and diligence” for
unclear docket entries. He also canceled court without proper notice,
creating hardships for attorneys and defendants, sometimes brought by
sheriffs from other counties.
The complaint lists a number of rule violations, with a particular
discussion of his participation in cases from which he should have
recused and abuse of office in attempting to influence the Game and Fish
cases.
The report concludes Carroll had demonstrated a pattern of poor
conduct and didn’t appear to acknowledge it until several months into
the investigation. It said Carroll, with advice from his attorney,
appears to have improved his conduct, including by recusing from the
deputy’s cases.
Carroll was a private attorney for 10 years, a prosecuting attorney
for six and \ a judge for nearly 10 years. The discipline agency said,
by way of mitigation of penalties, that Carroll had acknowledged errors
and that he also had faced health issues and family deaths in the last
year. He has given up a criminal docket to avoid cases involving the
deputy and taken on more civil cases. He has agreed to remedial
measures, the complaint says.
The recommendation was for 90 days suspension, but with 30 days in
abeyance if conditions are met. The punishment is worse than a censure
but less than removal from office.
The judge is restricted in what he may say about the case, he will be
subject to attendance checks and he must attend classes on ethics and
court management.
The judge’s circuit covers Calhoun, Cleveland, Columbia, Dallas,
Ouachita and Union counties. He was re-elected to a six-year term in
2020.
The
twice-disciplined judge got to keep his job after the Michigan Supreme
Court on Thursday suspended him without pay for six months for making
crass and sexual comments in court — behavior that could have gotten him
removed from the bench.
According
to the JTC complaint, Morrow's misconduct included: talking about the
"climax of sex" with one prosecutor; using an F-bomb to describe
sex; mocking the defendant over the size of his penis in chambers;
asking a prosecutor during a trial break, "Would you want foreplay
before or after sex?"; and asking a prosecutor her height and weight.
In the end, Judge Bruce Morrow got a break.
The
twice-disciplined judge got to keep his job after the Michigan Supreme
Court on Thursday suspended him without pay for six months for making
crass and sexual comments in court — behavior that could have gotten him
removed from the bench.
According
to the JTC complaint, Morrow's misconduct included: talking about the
"climax of sex" with one prosecutor; using an F-bomb to describe
sex; mocking the defendant over the size of his penis in chambers;
asking a prosecutor during a trial break, "Would you want foreplay
before or after sex?"; and asking a prosecutor her height and weight.
"Bruce Morrow used sex in a few analogies, just as other lawyers, judges
and legal scholars have done," Donald Campbell, one of Morrow's
lawyers in the case, argued in a court filing. "He also used the word “f
----d” during an in-chambers discussion to describe sex —and one of his
listeners was the prosecutor who had just used that word twice in open
court and allowed a witness to take the stand with that word on her
shirt."
Morrow's lawyer continued: " And he asked two
prosecutors about their height and weight, just as he raised a male
attorney’s height when talking to a jury about bias. Those actions were
not judicial misconduct. And that is why (the) disciplinary counsel
tries to twist the facts to turn Judge Morrow into a sexual predator."
He denied Morrow "hit on" a prosecutor.
"The truth is that Judge Morrow used words that some find distasteful. That is all. And that is not judicial misconduct."
The
Michigan Supreme Court disagreed, concluding that Morrow had engaged in
judicial misconduct. But as for punishment, the high court held that a
six-month suspension was more appropriate for Morrow "given the
severity of (his) conduct relative to that in other judicial discipline
cases."
The high court also noted that Morrow's conduct did not affect the rights of the person on trial.
The
six-month suspension triggered a blistering dissent from Supreme Court
Justice Brian Zahra, who told the disciplinary panel that Morrow is a
"frequent flyer" who has "failed" to learn "anything" from his past and
should have lost his job.
"This is not the
first disciplinary proceeding in which (Morrow's) inappropriate
courtroom behavior has been the subject of discipline," Zahra wrote.
"Given (Morrow's) history of judicial misconduct, his lack of remorse,
and the absence of any assurance that (he) will conform to the rules of
judicial conduct in his waning days in office, I strain to find any
rational basis to reward (him) with a lesser suspension."
Zahra added: "It is rare for any judge of this
state to have been publicly found to have committed judicial misconduct
... (and) to have twice committed misconduct without having resigned or
been removed from office."
According to the complaint, here is what led to Morrow’s six-month suspension:
On
June 11, 2019, during a break in a homicide trial, an assistant
prosecutor asked the judge for feedback on her direct examination of a
witness. The judge said he would come down from the bench to talk to her
personally "because what he was going to say to her would make her
'blush.' "
Morrow came down from the bench, sat
next to the assistant prosecutor, "placed his head very close to her
head" and started asking her questions. "So when a man and a woman are
close, they start by holding hands, rubbing elbows, kissing, foreplay,
then that leads to sex?”
The judge continued:
“You want the foreplay before the sexual intercourse. That’s what we
call cuddling. No, you start with holding hands.”
The
judge, the complaint said, was making an analogy to the prosecutor to
the effect that "the climax of sex is akin to getting the medical
examiner to state the cause and manner of death after getting the
details of his examination of the body.”
The
judge continued: “You start with all the information from the report,
all the testimony crescendos to the cause and manner of death, which is
the sex of the testimony.”
The judge also
suggested to the prosecutor that “you want to tease the jury with the
details of the examination ... lead them to the climax of the manner and
cause of death.” This discussion caused the prosecutor "to feel
'frozen' and afraid to move," the complaint states.
Then came jury deliberations, and the misbehavior continued.
While
the jury deliberated, Morrow invited defense lawyers and prosecutors to
join him in chambers, where he chastised a female prosecutor for
presenting evidence to the jury that the murder suspect's DNA was found
on the victim's vaginal swab.
"All you did was show they f-----!" the judge allegedly told the prosecutor.
Then
he "made fun" of the defendant's testimony that he and the victim did
not have sex in a normal manner because she was pregnant and he did not
want to hurt the baby.
Morrow is also accused of asking female lawyers about their appearance.
In
the 2019 homicide case, for example, the judge allegedly approached the
prosecutor's table and asked an assistant prosecutor how tall she was
and how much she weighed. He asked the other assistant prosecutor
whether she weighed 115 pounds. When she responded with respect to her
weight, the judge said, "Well, I haven't assessed your muscle mass
yet.'"
This isn't Morrow's first run-in with the disciplinary panel.
In
2014, the Michigan Supreme Court suspended Morrow without pay for 60
days for “continually doing what he wanted regardless of the law.” The
JTC had filed a complaint alleging that Morrow had committed misconduct
in 10 cases, including many in which he was allegedly overly friendly
with defendants. The misconduct claims include:
He refused to lock up a convicted child rapist pending sentencing.
He spared a three-time convicted drunken driver from a mandatory 30-day jail sentence and released him on probation instead.
He
left the bench at the beginning of a trial to shake hands with a
defendant and give a package of documents to that defendant's lawyer.
He improperly closed the courtroom during a hearing and ordered the court reporter not to prepare a transcript.
He
personally retrieved an inmate from lockup, escorting him to the
courtroom and sentencing him without restraints or security personnel
present.
MADISON — The Wisconsin Supreme Court has suspended a Racine County
judge for five days without pay, citing “concerning” and “obviously
unethical” behavior.
The unanimous court in an unsigned order Tuesday, May 21 said that
Racine County Judge Michael Piontek’s judicial misconduct in two cases
from 2014 warranted the suspension.
In one case, Piontek called a prosecutor without notifying the
defense attorney. In the phone call, Piontek said that any plea
negotiation should involve the defendant being convicted of a felony and
those involved in “scams like this” need to be stopped.
The Supreme Court says Piontek appeared to only admit his “obviously unethical” wrongdoing after he was caught.
In the case, Piontek did an independent internet investigation and
relied on incorrect information at sentencing. The Supreme Court calls
it “clearly improper” to conduct the research and not give the
defendant’s attorney a chance to respond.
SAN JACINTO COUNTY, Texas - A county judge is accused of burglary, forgery and tampering with a governmental record, investigators said Monday.
Judge John Lovett Jr., 51, has been
suspended without pay due to the charges he faces, according to his
Order of Suspension, which was issued Sunday.
The burglary and tampering counts are considered
felonies. The forgery charge is a misdemeanor. The allegations were
filed in an indictment stemming from an incident at the County
Courthouse on July 7, 2017, according to a news release from the San
Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office.
Lovett is accused of entering the county
clerk’s office and then falsifying a certification or a signature stamp
of the county clerk on a meeting notice. The county clerk didn’t
authorize this, the indictment said.
The Attorney General’s Office presented its
case Monday to a grand jury, and then Lovett was booked in jail. He has
since posted bond.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline has suspended a Clark County District Court judge for two months without pay and ordered him to undergo a psychiatric exam.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that Family Court Judge William Potter ordered a lawyer handcuffed in court, commented on cases during his re-election bid and exploded in anger during the commission’s own hearing.
The commission’s decision Wednesday says the panel questioned Potter’s “mental stability and capacity to control his anger.”
Potter watched video of the hearing when the attorney was put in handcuffs and said he didn’t violate judicial conduct rules but cringed when he saw his behavior.
The commission ordered Potter to submit the psychiatric exam’s results, write letters of apology, perform community service with an anti-bullying group and pay it $5,000.
A longtime Goodsprings judge has been suspended for a year without
pay following a series of ethics charges, according to a ruling made
this week by the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline.
The punishment is based on Justice of the Peace Dawn Haviland’s
“repeated failure over several years to follow the law, her proclivity
towards following her own moral compass in administering her version of
justice irrespective of the law, and her lack of remorse and admission
of wrongdoing for the same,” the ruling states.
According to a host of allegations
made public earlier this year, Haviland sealed her then-son-in-law’s
criminal records, ordered staff to run background checks on her friend’s
boyfriend, and bullied employees.
Haviland has served as the small town’s sole justice of the peace since 1999. She was suspended with pay in December.
In her absence, three temporary justices of the peace will rotate to
cover her calendars, Clark County spokesman Erik Pappa said. The
arrangement has been in place since her initial suspension.
“We’re going to honor the decision, and we will continue to operate as we have these past seven months,” Pappa said.
Haviland is expected to return to the bench next year.
As justice of the peace, Haviland receives a taxpayer-funded salary
of more than $70,000 a year. She does not have a law degree, which is
not a requirement for justices of the peace in rural communities.
Goodsprings is about 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas.
Though Haviland could not be reached for comment late Wednesday, the judge responded to her charges in March in the form of a 14-page formal statement. She contended that all claims made against her were fabricated by resentful employees.
“I do not believe that I have committed any ethical violations,” she
wrote at the time. “I have at all times during my 20-year career
attempted to administer justice fairly and within the confines of the
law.”
She also addressed specific allegations:
— In response to an accusation that she sealed her former
son-in-law’s criminal records, Haviland said an employee handed her a
stack of orders to be signed. “I do not recall specifically signing this
order.” The records were in a domestic case involving Haviland’s
daughter, and both parties agreed to the seal, said Haviland, who
recused herself from the case.
— In response to an allegation that Haviland instructed her staff to
conduct a criminal background investigation on her friend’s boyfriend,
the judge said she simply ran a basic public records search on behalf of
a woman who lost $65,000 in a previous relationship. “This was a small
favor for me and my staff to do for this woman, and my advice may have
saved her tens of thousands of dollars and considerable grief and
heartache,” she said.
— In response to a charge about an improper sentence she later
modified, Haviland said, “It is surprising to me that I am being charged
with an ethics violation based on a simple mistake.”
Haviland’s lawyer, Al Marquis, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on
Wednesday that both he and his client were “very disappointed in the
decision.”
“We really thought that we had clearly established that she had not
violated the code of ethics,” he said Wednesday. “But when three
employees decide to gang together to bring down their boss, it’s hard to
fight that.”
The commission’s ruling instead commended the employees who came forward.
“If they had not done so, these disturbing matters would not have
come to light and, quite probably, would have continued far into the
future,” the ruling states. (Click to Continue)
