Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws or oaths remained on the bench

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

It's not just some of the police who are the problem. The entire justice system needs an overhaul and to be revamped.

"In the past dozen years, state and local judges have repeatedly escaped public accountability for misdeeds that have victimized thousands. Nine of 10 kept their jobs, a Reuters investigation found – including an Alabama judge who unlawfully jailed hundreds of poor people, many of them Black, over traffic fines.

By MICHAEL BERENS and JOHN SHIFFMAN in MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA

Filed June 30, 2020, noon GMT

Judge Les Hayes once sentenced a single mother to 496 days behind bars for failing to pay traffic tickets. The sentence was so stiff it exceeded the jail time Alabama allows for negligent homicide.

Marquita Johnson, who was locked up in April 2012, says the impact of her time in jail endures today. Johnson’s three children were cast into foster care while she was incarcerated. One daughter was molested, state records show. Another was physically abused.

“Judge Hayes took away my life and didn’t care how my children suffered,” said Johnson, now 36. “My girls will never be the same.”

Fellow inmates found her sentence hard to believe. “They had a nickname for me: The Woman with All the Days,” Johnson said. “That’s what they called me: The Woman with All the Days. There were people who had committed real crimes who got out before me.”

In 2016, the state agency that oversees judges charged Hayes with violating Alabama’s code of judicial conduct. According to the Judicial Inquiry Commission, Hayes broke state and federal laws by jailing Johnson and hundreds of other Montgomery residents too poor to pay fines. Among those jailed: a plumber struggling to make rent, a mother who skipped meals to cover the medical bills of her disabled son, and a hotel housekeeper working her way through college.

Hayes, a judge since 2000, admitted in court documents to violating 10 different parts of the state’s judicial conduct code. One of the counts was a breach of a judge’s most essential duty: failing to “respect and comply with the law.”

Despite the severity of the ruling, Hayes wasn’t barred from serving as a judge. Instead, the judicial commission and Hayes reached a deal. The former Eagle Scout would serve an 11-month unpaid suspension. Then he could return to the bench."

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Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws or oaths remained on the bench

 

[JGalt]

It's not just some of the police who are the problem. The entire justice system needs an overhaul and to be revamped.

"In the past dozen years, state and local judges have repeatedly escaped public accountability for misdeeds that have victimized thousands. Nine of 10 kept their jobs, a Reuters investigation found – including an Alabama judge who unlawfully jailed hundreds of poor people, many of them Black, over traffic fines.

By MICHAEL BERENS and JOHN SHIFFMAN in MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA

Filed June 30, 2020, noon GMT

Judge Les Hayes once sentenced a single mother to 496 days behind bars for failing to pay traffic tickets. The sentence was so stiff it exceeded the jail time Alabama allows for negligent homicide.

Marquita Johnson, who was locked up in April 2012, says the impact of her time in jail endures today. Johnson’s three children were cast into foster care while she was incarcerated. One daughter was molested, state records show. Another was physically abused.

“Judge Hayes took away my life and didn’t care how my children suffered,” said Johnson, now 36. “My girls will never be the same.”

Fellow inmates found her sentence hard to believe. “They had a nickname for me: The Woman with All the Days,” Johnson said. “That’s what they called me: The Woman with All the Days. There were people who had committed real crimes who got out before me.”

In 2016, the state agency that oversees judges charged Hayes with violating Alabama’s code of judicial conduct. According to the Judicial Inquiry Commission, Hayes broke state and federal laws by jailing Johnson and hundreds of other Montgomery residents too poor to pay fines. Among those jailed: a plumber struggling to make rent, a mother who skipped meals to cover the medical bills of her disabled son, and a hotel housekeeper working her way through college.

Hayes, a judge since 2000, admitted in court documents to violating 10 different parts of the state’s judicial conduct code. One of the counts was a breach of a judge’s most essential duty: failing to “respect and comply with the law.”

Despite the severity of the ruling, Hayes wasn’t barred from serving as a judge. Instead, the judicial commission and Hayes reached a deal. The former Eagle Scout would serve an 11-month unpaid suspension. Then he could return to the bench."

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Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws or oaths remained on the bench

You do realize that Mayor Bobby Bright, who appointed Judge Les Hayes, was a Democrat, right? He lost reelection amid the Tea Party wave in 2010.

 

[task0778]

Just as we have bad cops, so too do we have bad judges. Misconduct for any reason by anybody ought to be vigorously fought, maybe the BLM crowd ought to broaden their horizons a little bit. The only way I know to alleviate this problem is to strengthen the penalties and enforce them appropriately without favor. The 'without favor' part can get a little sticky when politics gets involved. And discrimination too.

 

[LuckyDuck]

First, I will say this, there are bad judges out there. While the sentence given of 496 days was hard on the woman, she had only herself to blame. She thought that she could just keep ignoring the fines and nothing serious would happen to her and quite frankly, you know damn well, that when she would get those ticket, she would just chuckle and think that it was no big deal. People get a traffic ticket, ignore it and then get another and another and one day, when they get pulled over, are actually arrested and hauled before a court, they whine about being arrested and how it will negatively affect their lives. If you refuse to obey simple traffic laws, you shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car. Cars didn't exist when the Constitution was drafted and thus, states can make any laws they want regarding them and you have to obey the states laws on the operation of motor vehicles.
The other issue of people incarcerated that have children....just because someone has a kid or kids, doesn't mean that they can get away with infractions of the law, nor should they be allowed to and when a punishment is handed down by a judge, it needs to be one that will deter the offender from repeating the action that got them put in front of the judge(s) in the first place.
Some crimes deserve much, much harsher punishments than they get. A good example of the scum that is arrested for possession of a stolen gun, is incarcerated for a very short time, let out and obtains another gun, only to serve another short sentence. If you are caught possessing a stolen firearm, there should be a mandatory minimum of 10 to 20 years. Once served, you actually might think twice before touching another one.

 

[JOSweetHeart]

The only reason that I can come up with why some people are lucky enough to keep their jobs is that there isn't anyone else out there right now who can do it just as good if not better and that whatever bad is in the picture isn't bad enough to outweigh whatever good is in the picture too.

God bless you always!!!

Holly