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Reuters has investigated misconduct by judges and uses a former Arkansas judge as a leading example.

Arkansas’s efforts at judicial misconduct oversight through the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission gets a warm review in the process. The particular judge, Tim Parker of Eureka Springs, was removed from office, though not charged with crimes.

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The lead of the article on Parker is about a 30-year-old woman in a custody fight who needed a lawyer. She met one who told her according to her confidential testimony, “You need yourself a Sugar Daddy.”

Tim Parker seemed ideal. He was available, and his fee was about half what another lawyer quoted. According to confidential testimony reviewed by Reuters, the woman told state authorities that Parker agreed to represent her in late 2013, then offered her some unexpected advice.

The woman told authorities that she covered part of her legal fees by having sex with Parker, and that Parker paid her at least $3,000 for more sex over the next two years. Typically, allegations that a lawyer had sex with a client or exchanged services for sex would be handled by local police or state ethics officials.

But Parker’s case was complicated: He wasn’t just a lawyer. He was also a part-time judge for the Carroll County District Court.

That allowed Judicial Discipline to investigate. The woman said other friends had received similar treatment. Numerous police agencies investigated for four years and heard more allegations of wrongdoing. But no charges were filed. Parker told Reuters he’d done nothing wrong as a lawyer or judge and allegations of criminal activity were untrue.

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He was removed from office at the end of his term in a forced resignation as a result of Judicial Discipline’s work.

Reuters’ article commented on the broader picture, with praise for Arkansas’s enforcement:

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The story of Tim Parker shows how hard it can be to remove an American judge suspected of corruption. It also illustrates how, even after misconduct on the bench becomes an open secret, a judge can remain in power for years when his victims are people who typically make for poor witnesses – in this case, petty criminals and drug addicts.

 

In its investigation into judicial misconduct across America, Reuters sought to identify people harmed as a result of judges who break the law or violate their sworn oaths. Over a dozen years, the news agency found at least 5,206 people who were directly affected by a judge’s misconduct. The victims ranged from individuals who were illegally jailed to those subjected to racist, sexist and other abusive comments or actions.

 

Parker’s case also provides a different, more hopeful lesson about ensuring accountability in America’s state and local courts, however. It demonstrates how a well-staffed and persistent state judicial oversight agency – the exception, not the rule, in the United States – can hold judges to account when other authorities can’t.

The Arkansas agency is better-staffed than average, the article said, with one staff member for every 53 judges. It will investigate anonymous complaints and it publishes all disciplinary decisions. Reuters continued:

The Arkansas commission is among the few that investigate anonymous complaints and make every disciplinary decision public. It has filed formal charges against state supreme court justices and has cracked cases that have sent trial judges to prison.

Arkansas commission director David Sachar, the son of a preacher, is the past president of the national Association of Judicial Disciplinary Counsel and speaks frequently at international conferences on misconduct by judges. He and his former deputy, Emily White, said they pursued Parker and others with the same mindset they applied earlier in their careers as sex crimes prosecutors in Little Rock.

“The average citizen cannot be expected to brush off improper or undignified behavior by a judge,” Sachar said in a 2018 speech to a United Nations conference. “The power imbalance is such that an employee, party or professional in that court have no way to respond without fear of a harsh or vindictive counter-response from a powerful public official.”

From there, Reuters delves deeply into the Parker case, using among other records his text messages that seem to indicate transactions involving drugs and sex. Parker denies these allegations. City police said the names of drug suspects had begun to leak. In one case, he ordered the release as a judge of a woman who was one of his legal clients. The Carroll County sheriff’s office investigated a similar happenstance.

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Sachar pressed to take action against Parker, even at the end of this term, after victims came to his agency. Finally, Parker agreed to admit to improperly getting friends out of jail, though he denied sex and drug allegations. A special state prosecutor investigated but decided not to file charges. A federal Grand Jury reviewed evidence but brought no charges. Victims were hard to locate and persuade to cooperate, Reuters was told. The information about Parker remains under review by the state agency that decides on disciplinary action against lawyers for violating ethical rules.

Parker continues to practice law.

 

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