If you’ve been depressed by these appointments to the Federal bench, remember these come with the caveat – no misbehavior. WaPo has a report on a State judge – yeah, it’s different, but the same principle applies – who fouled up:
A juvenile and domestic relations judge in southwest Virginia was removed from the bench Monday by the Virginia Supreme Court, effective immediately, after he admitted contacting two key witnesses in a pending federal corruption case against his wife.
Kurt J. Pomrenke, 64, was elected to the bench in 2013 to oversee juvenile and domestic court cases in Washington and Smyth counties and Bristol City along the Virginia-Tennessee border. He is only the second Virginia judge in the past 23 years to be removed by the state Supreme Court, court records show, with the other being a juvenile and domestic judge who resolved some visitation issues with a coin flip.
Pomrenke also has been found guilty of contempt of court by a federal judge in Bristol in connection with his wife’s case and on Thursday was sentenced to two months in prison and ordered to pay the maximum allowable fine of $1,000. His wife, Stacey Pomrenke, a former chief financial officer of Bristol Virginia Utilities, is serving a 34-month prison sentence on multiple charges of conspiracy, extortion and wire fraud, as well as contempt of court, in part for her husband’s contact with potential witnesses in the case.
The point being, fouling up like this will get you lifted right off any bench – and you can just bet some of these brand new judges are going to let their worst urges get the best of them, because that’s what often happens with the GOP.
Not that it’ll be enough to save the nation, but it’ll provide some nice schadenfreude.
