The judge apparently found the meter to be in contempt of court.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania District Judge Kelly Ballentine dismissed several of her own parking tickets and an expired registration ticket within the past year, according to court records.

“According to the state Judicial Conduct Board’s rules, district judges should disqualify themselves in proceedings where they are a party,” notes the news report.

Yes, I rather think that’s a good idea, don’t you?

It appears that Judge Balentine’s colleagues understand this not-so-fine point of conflict of interest principles and basic ethics: a check of court records with regard to all of the county’s district judges revealed that those who had parking or traffic tickets had another magisterial judge handle their cases at the district court level. Sometimes we hear objections to court proceedings in which a judge over-stepped his or her proper role and became de facto “judge, jury, and prosecutor.” A judge serving as judge, defendant and defense attorney, however, is much, much worse.

“Ballentine did not return several calls for comment on why court records show she dismissed her own tickets,” said the news story. I don’t blame her for that; what a dumb question! Why do you think she dismissed her own tickets? (Answer: because it’s cheaper than paying them.)

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for Pennsylvania to give Judge Ballantine, who was elected, the proverbial boot, as other states have to their judges when similar conduct has been uncovered. A Michigan judicial commission, for example, recently recommended the removal of a district judge who dismissed nine traffic cases against himself and his wife. This outrageous abuse of power is even frowned upon in New Jersey, where several judges were accused of fixing parking tickets for themselves, friends and family members in 2007. One was indicted and two were accepted into a pretrial intervention program.

Judicial ethics can be tricky, and there are fascinating debates to be had over what kinds of potential conflicts should trigger a judge’s recusal. This, however, is not one of those debatable issues. A judge who doesn’t understand (or understands but doesn’t care) that ruling on her own offenses violates professional ethics, common sense and the public trust is too untrustworthy, too ethically-challenged, and probably too dim-witted to be on the bench.