Jorgensen guilty of violations
MOSES LAKE — Grant County Superior Court Judge Ken Jorgensen admitted Tuesday he violated canons of the code of judicial conduct.
Jorgensen was accused of questioning a woman without her attorney present during a child custody hearing involving a Coulee City family in June 2005.
The state Commission on Judicial Conduct brought the charges earlier this year, which also included threatening incarceration during the child custody hearing and engaging in overbearing, abusive behavior.
J. Reiko Callner, the commission's executive director, said Jorgensen agreed to discipline for the code of conduct violations.
"The basic nature of the violation was not affording a person before him in court full right to be heard, according to the law," Callner said.
Jorgensen received a reprimand, the commission's intermediate level of sanction, Callner said.
The commission scheduled a fact-finding hearing for Tuesday at the Best Western Lake Inn in Moses Lake, to address the charges against Jorgensen.
The hearing ended about halfway through the day when Jorgensen and his lawyer, Tom Fitzpatrick of Seattle, bargained with the commission.
"The judge and his counsel, and disciplinary council, conferred and came up with an agreed resolution. They then offered it to the hearing panel," Callner said. The hearing panel accepted the agreed resolution.
Jorgensen did not return a message seeking comment.
The commission censured Jorgensen in 1996 for incompetence and directed him to attend classes on how to be a better judge. The censure, equivalent to a public slap on the wrist, stemmed from a series of conversations Jorgensen had with attorneys or parties in civil cases, without notice to opposing counsel.
The commission is an 11-member panel of attorneys, judges and citizens appointed by the governor. It reviews complaints against judges and can admonish them if they determine the code of conduct has been violated. The commission can recommend the state Supreme Court remove a judge from the bench.