Censure is recommended for apologetic judge who remarked on 'temptresses' who are 'asking for it'
The Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct has recommended a public censure for a judge who apologized for inappropriate comments and said he has “quit going off script.”
The commission made the recommendation after a disciplinary hearing on Thursday in the ethics case against Judge Timothy Dooley of Nome superior court, the Alaska Dispatch News reports. In addition to a public censure, the commission is recommending that Dooley be assigned a mentor judge for a year and that he receive additional training on subjects such as cultural sensitivity and domestic violence.
Dooley was accused of making several inappropriate statements, including this one at a November 2013 sentencing hearing where the victim was a 14-year-old girl: “This was not someone who was, and I hate to use the phrase, ‘asking for it.’ There are girls out there that seem to be temptresses. And this does not seem to be anything like that.”
Dooley also asked this question at a May 2013 sentencing hearing: “Has anything good ever come out of drinking other than sex with a pretty girl?”
Dooley, 62, told the commission that he regretted causing trouble and “my poor wife did a lot of crying at night and I caused her an amazing amount of stress.” He said he was overwhelmed after became a judge in April 2013, and “I was making mistakes right and left,” according to the Alaska Dispatch News report on the hearing.
Dooley told the commission his worst offense was a “rude and boorish” statement that violated the separation of church and state. His statement, made in an August 2014 civil trial, was: “I’m gonna enforce these oaths and they’re enforceable with a 2-year sentence for perjury. And I’d be the sentencing judge. I also have a medieval Christianity that says if you violate an oath, you’re going to hell. You all may not share that, but I’m planning to populate hell.”
