Newspaper: Judge's 3-Month Suspension Is a Paid Vacation
A three-month suspension meted out by an ethics panel to a Tennessee judge isn’t exactly a draconian punishment.
Since Cocke County General Sessions Judge John Bell will still draw his pay, the sanction is “essentially a three-month paid vacation,” writes the Knoxville News Sentinel in an editorial.
Meanwhile, taxpayers will have to cover the cost of a replacement judge to handle his call during the hiatus, the newspaper notes.
The News Sentinel reports that this is Bell’s third breach of the rules in his 12 years on the bench. Both the first and the latest action involved excessive delays in handling a case. Bell’s second disciplinary action, in 2008, was over his funneling of probation cases to a relative’s firm and taking money for a speech. (A 2008 article from the Knoxville News Sentinel details that earlier complaint against the judge.)
