To designate recently resigned Arkansas Cross County District Judge Joseph Boeckmann the most unethical judge ever would require disqualifying the Nazi judges sentenced at Nuremberg, Judge John Hathorne, who played both judge and prosecutor in the Salem witch trials, and probably some others who have escaped my attention. He is nonetheless a 21st Century low, and we can only hope his record for depravity and abuse of power is never exceeded.
Boeckmann’s resignation came after the judicial commission informed his lawyer that it was in the process of recovering as many as 4,500 photographs from the judge’s computer, and that they showed nude male defendants who had appeared before him in court.
“They all depict young men, many naked who are in various poses inside the judge’s home and outside in his yard,” the letter stated. “There are numerous photos of naked young men bending over after an apparent paddling,” the letter reads. “Please accept this as notice to not destroy [or] otherwise dispose of this paddle.”
All right, that last part is funny.
The investigation had commenced after Boeckmann was accused of a conflict of interest, and then stumbled upon allegations a dozen young men who said they received lighter sentences from the judge in exchange for sexual favors. Nobody expected to find evidence of what appears to be 30 years of his using threats of imprisonment or fines to extort young men for sex.
Earlier this year, the commission revealed the allegations of several men, including a minor, who described how the judge would give defendants appearing in Boeckmann’s court his hand-written phone number and have them serve what he described as “community service” at his home. One man described having a sexual relationship with Boeckmann while he paid off fines with the assistance of special extensions, granted by the predator judge.
Here’s another item from the report:
In another case, Boeckmann reduced a misdemeanor traffic violation and asked the defendant, identified in court documents as W.M., to bring three bags of cans to his home. After the judge offered him a drink — which he declined — “Boeckmann informed W.M. that he needed W.M. to pull 2 cans from the bags and bend over as if he were picking up the cans.” The judge then instructed him “on how to pose and spread his legs farther apart,” the document states.
In a desperate and ridiculous attempt to defend himself, Boeckmann claimed that the photographs were used “to corroborate participation in community service.” That would be funny too, if the underlying offense were not so horrible.
Two troubling questions hover around this case. So far, no criminal charge have been filed. Why not? Surely, this man will not escape prosecution..right? The judicial profession is one of the most brazen about protecting its own, but it can’t extend this far, can it? If the judge escapes imprisonment, it will confirm the worst suspicions of the most cynical critics of the justice system.
The other ethics alarm was sounded by CNN legal avenger Nancy Grace, who opined that it is not possible that others in the system did not know about Judge Boeckmann’s sick abuse of his position. I agree. Thirty years? Someone must have talked; someone must have noticed; someone must have been paid, or threatened, or just didn’t care enough or have the courage to make this stop.
They need to be found and punished too. The justice system in Arkansas won’t be trustworthy until they are.
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Ethics Alarms 
Well it’s Arkansas. Judge Spanky deserves some corporal punishment but he’s managed to CYA.
Nancy. Grace. Said. Something. Intelligent.
Excuse me… I need to sit down. Maybe pour a drink.
I know. Snowball fights are occurring in Hell.
Jack,
You were joking about the Nancy Grace comment, right? I am nhot sure my tenuous grasp on reality can take Grace saying something intelligent. And don’t give me that broken clock is right 2 times a day. She’s not a clock, so there you go . . . .
jvb
No, I saw and heard it live. She was spot on.
Nancy Grace comes on TV and you don’t scream and change the channel?
This comment illustrates why Ethics Alarms needs a like button.
You do know that when a first time commenter sends in a non-substantive comment saying “great post” or “right on,” it gets rejected, right?
Now, I will often say Bravo, or Bingo, or Exactly, because that means I am endorsing a substantive position, and I have an established track record. And when you agree with something, that is meaningful because you have made substantive contributions. But the fact that 143 people “like” a post and 45 don’t is meaningless: ethics isn’t a popularity contest. The whole concept of caring how many people “like” a post or comment cuts against the official disdain here for “everybody does it.” A like vote is too vague and ambiguous to contribute to the conversation, and a “dislike” vote (WordPress offers both) tells me nothing. I also ding first time commenters who just say, “You’re full of shit”; “You’re wrong” or something similar. Often I write them and explain that if they can offer reasons why they disagree, I’ll post the comment. They almost never do, because they can’t articulate a reason.
Fine. Then ethics alarm needs a bravo, bingo, or exactly button — but a commenter has to earn the right to use it. It’s like when your dad finally gives you the keys to the car.
Your humor is appreciated. But I am trying to encourage more thought and expression here, not less, and definitely fewer short cuts. Maybe I have a bias against the whole “liking” thing, after trashing too many comments that said, “You just are complaining about the e-mail stuff because you don’t like Hillary.”
The world has gone fucking mad. Over and out.
I’m not sure we should label him Most Unethical. Just like “World’s Oldest Person”, it’s a job that’s always up for grabs. Sorry to say.
I think he might be beat by that judge who was sending kids to prison because he got kickbacks from the company that ran the juvie jail. Both are reprehensible, but I think wrongly punishing the innocent is worse than wrongly freeing the guilty.
I agree with your last sentence, as would Ben Franklin. But your calculations leave out the little detail of using the criminal process for involuntary sexual submission and humiliation
I don’t think that’s worse then imprisonment, as a general thing. Especially since imprisonment all too often includes sexual assault as well.
Your logic escapes me. Sexual assault is a crime, sexual assault on a child is rape. A judge being corrupt is a standard ethical breach; using the judge’s position to prey on young men is infinitely worse….and you seem to be ignoring the number of victims and the time–30 years– involved. The judge with the kickback scheme was at his crime for a fraction of the time, with far fewer victims…and he just had a conflict of interest. It is not alleged that all of those he sent to prison didn’t belong there, just that his objectivity was compromised. NONE of Boeckmann’s victims deserved what they got from him.
Your point about the time is valid. But I don’t think we can call kids-for-cash “just a conflict of interest”, or something as minor as “compromised objectivity”. The judges were taking money to send kids to prison, whether or not they deserved to be there. By my book, ethically, that’s kidnapping. I think it can reasonably be compared with sexual assault in the severity of the crime.
That’s an exaggeration, though. He wasn’t having innocent kids arrested, he was benefiting from where they were sent. Almost all of them, if not all of them, were guilty, and were going to end up incarcerated somewhere. The problem was that he couldn’t be the one to decide.
Several hundred convictions by the two judges were overturned after all this broke:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/court-tosses-convictions-of-corrupt-judge/
These guys were sending kids to prison for making parody MySpace pages.
(Random aside: isn’t “PA Child Care LLC” just about the most Orwellian name for a prison company ever?)
Of course they all had to be overturned, guilty or not, because the integrity of the process was compromised by the judges’ conflicts. Of course some of the convictions were more outrageous than others.