A judge in Benton County, Arkansas, has received a letter of censure for his angry reaction after finding that someone had parked in his reserved space in the court parking lot.
Judge Brad Karren agreed that his behavior was inappropriate, agreed that his actions violated the Arkansas Code of Judicial Conduct and accepted the censure, according to the letter of censure. The Arkansas Judicial Discipline & Disability Commission announced the censure letter in a Jan. 21 press release.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, KARK.com and the Arkansas Times have coverage.
The parking lot tiff received national media attention after Davy Carter, a former Arkansas House of Representatives speaker, tweeted about the April 2021 incident.
At one point during the incident, the censure letter said, Karren threw a cane “as if to clear his hands” and adopted “an aggressive stance.” A video showing the cane throw was posted online, where it has been viewed thousands of times.
Carter said his 20-year-old son, a college student, had parked in Karren’s space after seeing well-marked signs stating that the lot was for Benton County employee parking between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. The student had arrived in the lot at about 7 p.m. to join his parents for dinner.
Carter’s son did not see a sign on the wall of a building that said the space he parked in was reserved for Karren “24/7,” and violators would be towed.
When Carter’s son returned to his car, Karren and his bailiff were standing by the vehicle, the censure letter said. Karren had arrived in the parking lot after he sat as a special judge in a different court that day.
Carter described Karren on Twitter as “a very angry man with a gun on his hip and a cane” who was “berating” his son for parking in his spot.
Carter said his son and his wife repeatedly apologized to the judge, but they were “met with rabid fury and anger.”
The censure letter cited Rule 1.2 of the Arkansas Code of Judicial Conduct that says judges shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.
“The plain language of this rule makes it clear that judges have a duty to conduct themselves with dignity in their personal lives, as well as their official actions on the bench,” the letter said.
“It is not burdensome to expect the judiciary to follow broadly accepted norms of social conduct. This is where you failed.” The case is “about common courtesy and conduct when in a minor confrontation,” the letter stated.
The reprimand noted mitigating circumstances that included a heavy workload and “an extremely difficult past many years.” Karren nearly died when he broke his neck in a bike accident about eight years ago. Two years ago, he had triple bypass surgery following a full cardiac arrest. Nine months ago, he had a hip replacement, which required him to use the cane.
Karren has also had multiple death threats while a judge.
The censure letter said Karren agreed to several remedial measures that included attending a class on mindfulness for judges, continuing to participate in professional counseling, reading a report on bullying and sexual harassment in the legal profession, and reiterating his apology to people involved in the incident.
Karren said in a press release he had accepted full responsibility. The press release included comments from five lawyers praising Karren for ruling with fairness and impartiality in the courtroom.
]]>Our law firm recently tried a civil rights case where the prosecutor violated court orders and permitted false witness testimony
Yet the jury found that those acts were not a knowing unconstitutional practice of the district attorney. Constitutional trickery may not result in justice.
Police in Virginia Beach, Virginia, used fake DNA reports in an effort to get confessions, cooperation or convictions, according to outgoing Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring.
The police department used the fake reports in at least five instances between March 2016 and February 2020, according to a press release by Herring.
The Associated Press, NPR, the Virginian-Pilot and the Washington Post have coverage.
Herring’s Office of Civil Rights had investigated after an assistant commonwealth’s attorney sought a certified copy of what turned out to be a fake report from the state’s forensic science agency in April 2021.
The forged documents generally claimed that a suspect’s DNA was found in connection with a crime. The fake reports purported to come from the Virginia Department of Forensic Science.
“This was an extremely troubling and potentially unconstitutional tactic,” Herring said in the press release.
In one instance, a forged document was presented to a court as evidence in a bail hearing, Herring’s office told the Washington Post. The prosecutor notified the court and the defense attorney after she learned that a fake document had been used. The defendant was given a new hearing.
On Jan. 11, the Virginia Beach City Council agreed to a conciliation agreement with the attorney general’s office that requires an end to the practice and police training against the use of forged documents.
The police department had cooperated in the state investigation and had banned use of the fake documents in May. People who were interrogated using the fake documents will be notified.
In a statement, the Virginia Beach Police Department said the practice, “though legal, was not in the spirit of what the community expects.”
The Washington Post points to a 1997 Virginia appeals court decision supporting the police department’s view of legality. The decision affirmed a murder conviction in which the suspect confessed after police showed him fake fingerprint and DNA reports implicating him in the crime.
Defense lawyer Chris Leibig told the Washington Post that other courts have also upheld the use of falsehoods.
“Unfortunately, courts, including in Virginia, have held that falsehoods by police in obtaining an alleged confession, even the use of forged documents, does not necessarily invalidate a confession,” Leibig said. “Such ploys are just a factor to be considered in whether a confession was voluntary. Reprehensible does not equal unconstitutional.”
]]>A Florida appeals judge used her dissent last week to criticize a lawyer who used a male pronoun to refer to her in court papers.
Judge Martha C. Warner of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Florida pointed out the error when she dissented to the court’s refusal to certify a case to the Florida Supreme Court.
Law360 and Law.com have coverage of Warner’s Jan. 19 dissent.
Warner said a lawyer had used the word “he” to refer to her in the motion for rehearing or certification. The mistake didn’t appear to be a typographical error, she said, because “he” was used twice.
Warner said a quick look at the court’s website would reveal that she is a woman.
“Granted, gendered pronouns are tricky in this day and age, but ‘he’ is not the default universal personal pronoun,” Warner wrote.
“More importantly, this error reveals the tenacious grip that the male image has in the legal profession to the detriment of women who have joined the profession in droves since I began practicing 48 years ago,” Warner said. “It still is an issue that women are mistaken for court reporters or paralegals by both judges and lawyers. No man would suffer that same misidentification, which relegates the woman to a less important role.
“We all need to be cognizant and remove from our thinking the male-centric image of lawyers and judges.”
Law360 and Law.com revealed that the lawyer who used the wrong pronoun was Thomas J. Butler of Miami Beach, Florida. Butler expressed regret for the mistake in an interview with Law.com.
“I made a mistake in referencing Judge Martha Warner as ‘he’ instead of ‘she.’ I had confused Judge Warner with a different judge. I apologize for the mistake,” Butler told Law.com. “I believe we should all be mindful of pronouns when referring to everyone.”
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