1 Day to go. More "Tea," anyone?

I read in a local Prescott paper how, despite the bad weather, about 2000 of you concerned citizens came out to the Courthouse on April 15 to protest. Good for you! Wanna do it again?

I was particularly pleased to read the reason for the protest. Among other things, The rally is meant to display opposition to ... loss of ... accountability. (Quoting Jennifer Campbell, a local attorney who helped organize the tea party.) Wow, if ever there was a time to demand accountability.

When you consider the three branches of government, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial, which do you think is the least accountable?

It stands to reason that the branch that's the least accountable is the branch that has the least amount of light shining on it, the branch that keeps you in the dark the most. At the risk of further alienating judges in Yavapai county (wait for my Book!), that would be the Judicial branch.

For example, it wasn't until 2006 that the Commission would tell us the identity of the judges it disciplined. How could we vote intelligently to retain or elect judges without that data?

I recommend the eBay feedback model. We're smart enough to weed out the vindictive feedback.

But if no discipline is taken, the Commission still keeps the identity of judges hidden. In contrast, if you're falsely arrested or accused, YOUR name, picture, etc. all become part of the public record. (All animals being equal...) Our other politicians aren't immune from public criticism and scrutiny. Judges shouldn't be either. (Don't kid yourself. There's a LOT of politics in the Judiciary.)

Even with the new partial disclosure rule, all work by the Commission is confidential. It's confidential even to the extent that the Commission won't notify law enforcement if they find evidence a judge committed a crime!

Isn't there a duty, especially as officers of the court, to notify law enforcement when you have knowledge of a crime?

And I haven't mentioned that the Commission is mostly comprised of judges and those in the system! That's pretty independent, don't you think?

Hello, Legislature? This is your job in true Check & Balance fashion. There ought to be a Misconduct Commission in the Legislature.

You can file a State Open Records Law request with your local police agency and get all sorts of disciplinary records on a cop, whether there was discipline or not. Try filing an Open Records Request on another type of law enforcement officer, a judge. You won't get a thing. That's not right. They're both public servants.

This is exactly why you should show up tomorrow, Wednesday, September 30, in front of the Yavapai County Courthouse (East side) around lunchtime. In addition to telling your story if you were a victim of Judge Hinson, if you're a concerned citizen, you need to display your opposition to loss of accountability... in the Judiciary.