Drug-court judge resigns after ethics commission calls for her removal over alcohol-related conduct
A Florida drug court judge resigned on Tuesday, following a call by the state Judicial Qualifications Commission on Monday for her removal from the bench.
Sober for nearly 20 years, Broward County Judge Gisele Pollack relapsed in 2013 after her mother’s death. She had been elected in 2004, and had helped to create the misdemeanor drug court which she led. Although she and her attorneys sought to have her alcohol dependence treated as a disability, the commission said her conduct, on and off the bench, required discipline.
The Monday recommendation by the JQC wouldn’t have been final until approved by the state supreme court, but the 56-year-old Pollack, who had been suspended without pay in May, decided to step down voluntarily, according to the Pulp page of the Broward-Palm Beach New Times, CBS News and the Sun Sentinel.
“It’s a sad day for her and the people of Broward County,” her lawyer, Eric Schwartzreich, told CBS. He said Pollack will continue to try to help others who struggle with substance abuse.
At issue in the legal ethics case against Pollack were two alleged incidents, which she did not contest, of coming to work intoxicated in December 2013 and taking the bench while under the influence in March 2014, as well as a subsequent driving-under-the-influence charge last year, to which she pleaded guilty against her counsel’s advice and got probation.
