Prostitutes, Strippers, and "Judges Gone Wild"

* One was caught having sex in a parked car with the public defender assigned to his courtroom.

* Another inappropriately touched a prosecutor and investigator after they sat in his lap posing for a photo.

How bad has it gotten in Georgia?

The Judicial Qualifications Commission, the Georgia agency that investigates judges, has given its investigator Richard Hyde, a former Atlanta police detective, the authority to confront judges with investigative findings and to negotiate a quick resignation, according to the AJC.

Hyde "is traveling around the state collecting scalps," one Georgia lawyer said. Hyde declined comment.

Georgia judge Frank Mills III said judges in the state have noticed the recent resignations. "I think we're all bewildered by it," he said. "But most of these cases are not similar, so it's hard to say there's any trend."

If you aren't a member of the legal fraternity, it's not hard to see a trend. A frightening number of judges are slime balls and criminals--on and off the bench. The problem hardly is limited to Georgia and a few isolated cases in other states. It's a nationwide issue, one that affects both state and federal courts.

As someone who has witnessed the corrupt official acts of multiple state and federal judges in Alabama, I am not at all surprised by these stories out of New Mexico and Georgia. And the kind of judicial arrogance that Murdoch displayed, thinking he could game the system to cover up his crimes, rings loud and true to me. My guess is that Murdoch made an untold number of unlawful rulings over the years against parties before him--and got away with it time after time. It took a prostitute, with the presence of mind to obtain irrefutable evidence, to bring him down for his outside-the-courtroom behavior.

Judge Murdoch, of course, is innocent until proven guilty. But he appears to have stepped in doo-doo that will not easily wash away.

Is there a lesson in this for the public? If judges are allowed to commit brazenly unlawful acts on the bench--and no one holds them accountable--we should not be surprised when they prove to be slime balls after the robes come off.

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