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.
< Spammer Gets Nine Years | Charles and Camilla: Married at Last > |