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Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced

By TChris, Section Misconduct
Posted on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 02:13:21 PM EST
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by TChris

Last year, TalkLeft noted the strange behavior of Oklahoma Judge Donald D. Thompson, who was pleasuring himself with a "male enhancement pump" during trials. Thompson was convicted last month of four counts of indecent exposure. He was sentenced today to four years in prison.

Was the sentence too stiff? (Pun intended. Hey, it's Friday.)

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    Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced | 17 comments (17 topical)
    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 02:34:18 PM EST
    NUTS! (OK, it's Friday on the East Coast, too...)

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 02:40:01 PM EST
    Sounds to me that he needs help more than he needs four years. Seems more than excessive (about 3years 51weeks excessive) the country is mad, another one for the statistics.

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#3)
    by desertswine on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 02:41:35 PM EST
    He should put in some hard time at a penile institution. Oh no...

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 02:45:55 PM EST
    He must have been doing drugs, too! Probably had a joint; that's what they do with all these bad people who use drugs! Give him life for the joint. (pun?)

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#5)
    by Punchy on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 02:46:13 PM EST
    Just wait until the prison population finds out that he's "enhanced"...

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#6)
    by Dadler on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 02:52:11 PM EST
    How can you be convicted of indecent EXPOSURE when you did this under your desk and robe? Don't you actually have to EXPOSE something? And four years, yes, that's ridiculous. Just yesterday I had to talk to my six year-old son about not playing with his little joint in public, that it's something to keep in private. Sounds like this guy needs the same talk. Or never got it. Or something.

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#7)
    by jondee on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 02:52:55 PM EST
    Hey, the "Hard On Crime" slogan is what got him into office. Of course, this has got me wondering even more about that bulge in Bush's jacket..

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#8)
    by JSN on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 03:00:32 PM EST
    I assume this was not a Federal judge otherwise he would have been impeached. I guess punishment fitting the crime must be a myth.

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 03:17:46 PM EST
    Hey, the "Hard On Crime" slogan is what got him into office.
    And the crime of hard on got him out of it.

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#10)
    by desertswine on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 03:30:13 PM EST
    Don't you actually have to EXPOSE something?
    At his trial this summer, his former court reporter, Lisa Foster, testified that she saw Thompson expose himself at least 15 times during trial between 2001 and 2003. Prosecutors said he also used a device known as a penis pump during at least four trials in the same period.

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#11)
    by Sumner on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 03:33:36 PM EST
    I have heard of this case, I do not know the case. Was he hearing criminal as well as civil cases? If so, was he a lenient judge, or especially harsh? If he derived sexual/sadistic pleasure from inflicting damage on people and couldn't even wait long enough to retire to his chambers, he sounds like he set justice back severely. If that is the case, (many lawmakers are essentially of that ilk, although perhaps not as up front) it was a clear practice of schadenfreude. And if that were the case, was the cumulative time in extra years he handed down in people's sentences more or less than the sentence he received? A person's personal dignity must always be observed by persons in authority. Once upon a time a municipal officer ordered the closing of an historical nudist colony on account of her personal bent of prudery. In a peripeteia I decreed that she was enjoined from wearing undergarments under her clothes, except during menstruation or cold weather, as that was a small example (in reverse) equivalent of what she had visited on a vast number of others. But I was concerned that my order violated her personal dignity. What resulted, is that she excused herself every 10 or 20 minutes from board meetings. Immediately, her peers began to attack nude clubs and bars, perhaps hoping for a similar order. Accordingly, I learned a valuable lesson about not dealing out cruel and unuasual punishment. I promptly rescinded that order.

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 08:01:09 PM EST
    thanks for the inside scoop, desertswine. couldn't imagine what the facts in the case were, exactly. some details: The sound of Thompson using the pump was heard by a number of witnesses, who said that the noise sounded "like air being pumped or released" from a blood pressure cuff. "On one occasion, Thompson sent Hindman to run an errand and when she returned to the courtroom, she saw that Thompson had the pump in his lap," the complaint said. "He jumped when he saw her. Hindman thought she saw his penis." [Source] Thompson, a married father of three grown children, testified that the penis pump was given to him as a joke by a longtime hunting and fishing buddy. "It wasn't something I was hiding," he said. [Huh?] He said he may have absentmindedly squeezed the pump's handle during court cases but never used it to masturbate. Foster told authorities that she saw Thompson use the device almost daily during the August 2003 murder trial of a man accused of shaking a toddler to death. A whooshing sound could be heard on Foster's audiotape of the trial. When jurors asked the judge about the sound, Thompson said he hadn't heard it but would listen for it. [for photo of the old reprobate, see Source:] [links deleted, not in html format, see instructions]

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#13)
    by Sailor on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 08:21:47 PM EST
    sheesh, the guy's a jerk off but 4 years!?

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 08:50:27 PM EST
    Jealous prosecutors...

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Aug 19, 2006 at 04:20:15 AM EST
    He said he may have absentmindedly squeezed the pump's handle during court cases but never used it to masturbate.
    Twenty-three years on the bench and this is the best you can come up with?
    Investigators later checked the carpet, Thompson's robes and the chair behind the bench and found semen, according to court records.
    Eat your heart out Big Bill.
    The jury recommended a sentence of one year in prison and a $10,000 fine on each count. The jury foreman has said it was the jury's intent that Thompson serve the full sentence.
    Adding that since burning at the stake was no longer on the statute, the good people of Oklahoma hoped by showing such mercy that the judge would repent his sinful ways. Whereupon being dismissed the jury hurried home harbouring salacious thoughts and engaged in much frigging. File under "Cor Blimey"

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Aug 20, 2006 at 08:39:25 AM EST
    The more I think about this case the more disturbed I become. Removing the titillation aspect and viewing the case for what it is, a twenty three year serving judge indulging in such bizzare behavior in an open court can only bring a conclusion that Thompson had "lost it" and lost it big time. The fact he refused psycological evalution helped his case not at all, but then here is a man that whose grip on reallity, by virtue of his previous behaviour, must have been in severe doubt. Given his refusal, what course of action should the establishnent have taken? I know not, but I would like to think it should have been far more humane than the course they took. Both in the matter of charges and the subsequent harshness of his sentence. From the law point of view I wonder if there is not a case for those that have received recent judgements from Thompson to challenge his fitness to pass sentence. The man quite obviously has a mental illness of some form or other.

    Re: Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced (none / 0) (#17)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Aug 20, 2006 at 10:58:39 AM EST
    TChris/Tl Do you have any thoughts on this case, I would be more than interested to read them.

    Indecent Judge Gets Sentenced | 17 comments (17 topical)