Man wearing T-shirt with judge's picture and ethics reference is asked to leave courthouse
A man wearing a T-shirt that appeared to comment on ethics charges against a Pennsylvania judge was asked to leave the courthouse on Thursday.
Sheriff John Loomis says the man was asked to leave because he didn’t stop when a deputy sheriff asked to speak with him, the Erie News-Times reports. Loomis did not release the man’s name to the newspaper.
The T-shirt had a picture of Judge Stephanie Domitrovich of Erie County, along with the words, “Do you even ethics bro?”
Domitrovich remains on the bench. Still pending is a petition to suspend her until resolution of the ethics case against her, filed on July 7. The Erie Times-News and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette covered the ethics complaint in prior stories.
The Judicial Conduct Board’s ethics complaint (PDF) accuses Domitrovich of “unpatient, undignified and discourteous” treatment of parties that included yelling, finger pointing, sarcasm and storming off the bench.
The complaint also alleges she failed to properly train her secretary, was overly critical of her job performance, and tried to fire the secretary while she was out on medical leave. Domitrovich is also accused of denying in a deposition that her husband, a lawyer, helped draft her opinions, even though staffers said she often sent documents to him for review and editing.
Domitrovich’s lawyer has said the ethics charges are without merit, and he has assembled a team “who are all determined to expose the motivation behind the allegations.”
