Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Charles Cope returns to the bench today after more than a year of paid leave, having "favorably impressed" a state judicial ethics panel with his "remorse."

Webster's says remorse is "a deep, torturing sense of guilt felt over a wrong that one has done." Cope, a married man who got arrested during a California judicial conference after two women said he tried to break into their hotel room to have sex with one of them, may indeed have cause for such emotion. Cope has admitted to public intoxication and inappropriate sexual conduct. In other respects, though, he has demonstrated his remorse in some unorthodox ways.

Remorseful Cope: Ask the arresting officer, according to police: "Is there anything you can do to make this go away?"

Remorseful Cope: Hide the arrest until the chief judge gets a call from the state attorney.

Remorseful Cope: Blame the newspaper for "political assassination."

Remorseful Cope: Accuse a Judicial Qualifications Commission attorney of lies.

Remorseful Cope: Dig up dirt about the woman with whom he admits having sexual foreplay.

Remorseful Cope: Demand, in depositions, to know whether the woman wears thong underwear.

Remorseful Cope: Question the woman about abortions.

Remorseful Cope: Liken the woman, in public, to a "rattlesnake."

As Cope again begins to sit in judgment of others, those who are called before his bench are supposed to be comforted that the state commission empowered to enforce judicial ethics is impressed by his remorse. Others might be more reassured if Cope had expressed his remorse in a way Webster's might recognize.

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