(8/31/2005)

JAIL for Bad Judges in South Dakota

The Judicial Accountability Initiative Law

By Bob Ellis

Dakota Voice

It used to be that only criminals had a problem with judges. However, in this day and age, it seems more innocent people are upset with the judicial system than those committing crimes. While there are many good judges in our legal system, perhaps people have good reasons for losing faith:

• In June, Circuit Judge Glen Severson in Minnehaha County threw out evidence gathered in a child pornography case on the grounds that the images found on the suspects’ computer were in a “temporary” folder and not a “permanent” folder on the computer. 

• The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that private property could be seized using eminent domain and given to developers for commercial projects (not just for “public use” projects), if the tax revenue generated by the commercial venture was great enough.

• In March Judge George Greer condemned a brain damaged but aware woman in Florida to starvation and dehydration on the grounds that her husband, who was living with another woman, claimed she had once expressed a wish to die if she ever became incapacitated, though no documentary evidence of this wish existed.

• Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez sentenced a transsexual man to one year of home detention after he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and attempting to rape a 12-year-old boy. Charles Horton, 32, lured the boy into his car and held a screwdriver to the boy's neck while forcing him to simulate sex acts.

• Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez also let a 31 year old woman go free on probation after she pled guilty to 14 counts of child abuse, which involved beating and burning her 13 year old daughter.

• Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez continued her reign of indifference to the protection of society by sentencing a former corrections officer to probation after he pled guilty to raping an 11 year old girl several times.

• In St. Louis, Missouri, 44-year-old Ricky Keith Ferrier, who was previously convicted of sex crimes in 1993, was charged with sodomy and child molestation on another child. Ferrier was sentenced in 1993 for sodomizing a 5-year-old girl. He was sentenced to five years in prison but got probation after 120 days, according to court records.

• In Missouri, Tyrone Williams pled guilty to criminal sexual abuse in 1994 and was sentenced to 2 years probation. In 1998 he was charged with sexual abuse of a 9-year-old girl.

• Over the course of several years, Oklahoma judge Donald Thompson was seen by court officials to be masturbating, using a penis pump, shaving his private parts, and urinating under the judges bench—during jury and non jury trials.

Malfeasance, corruption and dereliction of duty on the part of judges takes place in many forms. Sometimes the law, state and federal constitutions are ignored by judges. Sometimes judges protect the powerful at the expense of justice. Sometimes judges administer a “slap on the wrist” to dangerous criminals, leaving the public at risk from repeat offenders. Sometimes corruption is involved, and sometimes judges are just plain incompetent.

South Dakota Judicial Accountability wants to do something about that.

Bill Stegmeier, Team Coordinator for SDJA and Gary Zerman, the National JAIL (Judicial Accountability Initiative Law) Lt. Commander-In-Chief, are working to get the South Dakota JAIL Amendment on the ballot in November 2006.

Zerman recently told Dakota Voice the JAIL effort is a nationwide effort which started in California around 1994, and it has been gaining steam lately.

More than 41 states have formed JAIL chapters, with several getting the initiative placed on the legislative agenda of their respective states. The South Dakota effort began about a year ago when Stegmeier contacted Zerman.

The JAIL amendment seeks to hold the judicial branch of government accountable to an entity other than itself.

According to Zerman, the doctrine of “judicial immunity” is at the heart of the problem with bad judges. Zerman said America was intended to have three co-equal branches of government, but the judiciary made a power grab with Justice Stephen J. Field's decisions in Randall v. Bringham, 74 U. S. 523 (1868) and Bradley v. Fisher, 80 U. S. 335 (1872), which ruled that judges may not be sued.

Superior judges can sometimes withdraw that immunity for other judges accused of wrongdoing, but this relies on basically the same group policing itself, without outside accountability. Zerman said that about 88% of complaints against judges across the nation get dismissed.

SDJA was gathering signatures at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally recently. The group plans to gather 60,000 signatures by the end of October to ensure they end up with at least the required 33,500 required to get the initiative on the 2006 ballot.

*Editor's Note: This article is republished from the August 19 print edition of Dakota Voice, due to the considerable feedback it has generated.  Two follow-up articles are planned for the next print edition of Dakota Voice, coming in late September.  If you aren't a subscriber, you can become one here.