WA Justice Sanctioned For Visiting Treatment Facility
by TChris
In 1996, Washington Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders attended and spoke at a right-to-life rally. The State's Judicial Conduct Commission investigated, but Justice Sanders wasn't sanctioned.
Justice Sanders was sanctioned, however, after he "took an educational tour of the treatment facility for violent sexual predators at the McNeil Island Special Commitment Center." The Commission suggested that Justice Sanders called into question his ability to be impartial by speaking to inmates who had cases pending before the court. It's unclear, however, whether those conversations had anything to do with the pending cases.
Why was discipline imposed in the latter case but not the former?
Sanders immediately branded Friday's decision "bizarre." The 59-year-old Libertarian-leaning justice, who often is a lightning rod for criticism from prosecutors on his individual rights rulings, said the case resulted from people who have been gunning for him politically.
Judges need to avoid conduct that creates an appearance of partiality, but the Commission's suggestion "that Sanders violated canons, or rules, for conduct by going to the prison, despite fair warning he'd likely encounter people with pending cases," goes too far. It's not as if Justice Sanders went on a hunting trip with someone who had a case pending before him. Judges who are responsible for depriving people of their liberty should tour prisons, jails, and sexual predator detention facilities. Rather than divorcing themselves from the consequences of their decisions, judges should be encouraged to see for themselves the impact that criminal sentences and sexual predator commitments have on those who are incarcerated or detained.
If there is evidence that Justice Sanders' ability to be impartial in a particular case might have been tainted by speaking to a participant in that case, it would be appropriate for Justice Sanders to step aside from hearing that case. But the Commission barred Justice Sanders from hearing any case for two years that raises "the issue of volitional control," one of the critical issues in every sexual predator case. Again, the Commission went to far. Would it bar a judge from hearing a case involving Starbucks if the judge had ever purchased a cup of Starbucks coffee? The lack of any reasonable connection between Justice Sanders' actions and the sanction is indeed, as Justice Sanders said, bizarre.
Justice Sanders believes the Commission has no authority to limit the kinds of cases he can hear. He plans to appeal.
Sanders said in the interview that his appeal would go to the state Supreme Court, where his colleagues would appoint a special panel of judges. He said he also plans to push his lawsuit against the state for repayment of his legal fees, which already have hit $53,000.
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