Justice Sanders loses appeal on attorney general defense
We'll have a more detailed review up shortly, but the Supreme Court has ruled that the attorney general had no duty to defend Justice Richard Sanders, at public expense, before the Commission on Judicial Conduct. At issue is whether the State, under RCW 43.10.030(3) is required to defend a judge who is alleged to have committed an ethics violation while otherwise within the purview of his or her official duties.
Apparently it's all in who you know - or which party your actions align to? In King County, for example, KCDOT Director Linda Dougherty was defended in a retaliation lawsuit brought against her by KCDOT whistleblowers with taxpayer dollars. King County was dismissed as defendant, but Ron Sims apparently felt that it was appropriate to pay for his director's defense with my money and the money of county taxpayers. The whistleblowers proved their case and won the jury verdict recently. Reports are that it will eventually cost the taxpayers $4-$5 million dollars in legal fees and fines. And Dougherty will certainly not lose her job or receive any sort of significant reprimand for her actions against these employees who tried to expose wrongdoing in their own department.
Will someone let MikeC know what color the sky is? Rather than waste time with bothersome details called "facts" that instantly render the Dougherty instance distinguishable, let's re-focus on the issue here: the grand walking injustice that is this charlatan egomaniac Sanders. Five of four pro tems were spot on here -- and all nine seemed to agree that Sanders is a sorely public embarrassment. (And we haven't even gotten to his Mukasey heckling fiasco yet.) Not only does Sanders ignore that he's abused his position, he ignores rules (when convenient) and he fastidiously turns our state's highest court into some bizzare experiment into whimsy.