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Judicial dishonor

Charged with official misconduct, Judge Brandt Downey plans to retire in a year. He shouldn't be allowed to remain on the bench that long.

Only Brandt Downey knows why he announced his retirement days before the state Judicial Qualifications Commission charged him with official misconduct. But if his intent was to leave his Pinellas-Pasco Circuit judgeship on his own terms, he has forfeited that privilege. A judge who has shown such contempt for the robe shouldn't get another year wearing it.

The JQC investigative panel on Tuesday charged Downey with some salacious stuff, themes that wouldn't play well in the re-election campaign he was facing next fall. It says he used his office computer to troll pornographic Internet sites for three years, ignoring repeated warnings from county technology specialists who were worried about the software viruses his habits were introducing to the network. It says he hit on at least two female prosecutors, even asking a judge to switch cases so one would have to practice before him. His e-mail come-ons sounded like something out of American Pie: "U LOOKED GOOD ENUF TO . . . OH WELL, WISHFUL THINKING . . . C U SOON I HOPE."

The more troubling charge, though, is that Downey lied in his courtroom. When defense attorneys heard about a sleeping juror in a murder trial earlier this year, Downey rejected their motion for continuance. "In so ruling," the JQC investigator wrote, "you stated that there was insufficient evidence of the sleeping juror to require a hearing." But, the investigator, noted, a fellow juror had handed Downey a note complaining about the sleeping juror, and Downey had thrown it away.

Downey has been defiant since the day in April when he abruptly left the courthouse following a meeting with Chief Judge David Demers. He has refused to talk about the accusations or the investigation, yet issued a statement Friday condemning "rumors and half-truths reported in the press." He added, by way of indignant punctuation: "Now, with my announced retirement, I do not feel the need to comment on these matters, except to say that I have never sexually harassed anyone."

Demers did transfer Downey from criminal to civil courts, presumably to separate him from the female prosecutors. But the chief judge also has remained silent about his role and about how Downey could have misused courthouse computers for three years and be accused more than once of sexual harassment with no apparent sanctions. Was the chief judge reporting Downey to the JQC or helping him avoid it?

The formal charges on Tuesday begin a legal process that could easily last a year or more. Why Downey would want to spend his last year on the bench defending himself against such tawdry accusations is his own business. But he has no right to put the rest of the Pinellas-Pasco Circuit on trial as he does so. His behavior already has put his colleagues under a cloud for the past eight months. How much more dishonor does he intend to bring to the judiciary? The JQC should want no part of his stalling tactics.

[Last modified December 21, 2005, 00:51:17]