The judge resigned from his post during investigation that he traded lenient criminal sentences for nude and otherwise sexually suggestive pictures of male defendants - and forged court papers accordingly.
Some 4,500 pictures were involved - that "wealth" of pictures does not accumulate in one day. Or one week. Or even one year.
Some pictures, reportedly, involved a nude criminal defendant, handcuffed and in the courtroom - so multiple people had to be present or know about that - leaning forward, with pictures taken from the back, as a close-up.
The judge reportedly took some pictures as "betting with friends".
Back in June of 2016 I asked disturbing questions -
- with 4,500 pictures, this behavior had to go on for a very long time, with a lot of people knowing about it - so why those people kept quiet? They were afraid to lose their jobs?
- why the 70-year-old Judge Boeckmann allowed to quietly resign (and keep his pension), and was not criminally charged?
- why the sexual predator Judge Boeckmann's law license was not pulled?
As it often happens with criminal behavior of state judges, Judge Boeckmann was not criminally charged by state prosecutors - instead, the feds had to step in to prosecute him.
Now former Judge Boeckmann - but not his accomplices - was reportedly arrested, charged in a federal grand jury indictment with wire fraud and witness tampering, and booked in jail, in protective custody and on a suicide watch, until his Wednesday "detention hearing".
I must repeat that the monster of Judge Boeckmann could not emerge and exist for such a long time without:
1) the culture granting judges absolute immunity for malicious and corrupt acts on the bench;
2) the culture where attorneys, including prosecutors, who are supposed to report judicial misconduct, have their livelihoods in the hands of the judiciary - and are afraid to do their jobs as reporters of misconduct and as prosecutors;
3) the culture where judges are gods who can do no wrong - even when they are very obviously committing crimes - where court personnel prefers to rather be silent or complicit in criminal conduct (who undressed and kept that criminal defendant in handcuffs in the courtroom for the judge to take his nude pictures?)
4) the culture that provides minimal, if any, accountability for judges - even now Judge Boeckmann was allowed to simply resign, without any discipline, to obscure facts of his sorry case, and state prosecutors, having plenty of evidence, were afraid to touch his case, instead letting the feds to indict him instead.
I continue to ask the question - with so many people aiding and abetting judge Boeckmann, and soliciting his crimes (the "betting friends") - why only Judge Boeckmann was charged?
And why Judge Boeckmann is only charged for "wire fraud" and "witness tampering" and with no counts of sexual misconduct - to prevent the sorry facts to be aired in open court before the jury?
That's not the way to clean the judicial stables in Arkansas and elsewhere in this country.
And, by the way, even if federal criminal charges were filed, that does not prevent state prosecutors to file parallel state charges, there is no double jeopardy involved when state and federal prosecutors prosecute state and federal crimes stemming from the same fact pattern in separate criminal proceedings.
So, why state prosecutors did not file any charges against Judge Boeckmann?
Because they, too, were intimidated?
And because, for them, charging a judge, even a former judge, with a crime, may be career suicide?
If that is true, then we need to seriously change the way attorneys are regulated in this country and take that regulation away from the hands of the judiciary.
Otherwise, prosecutors will continue to let a sex predator prey upon his victims for years and, possibly, decades - simply because the predator belongs to the class that can yank the prosecutor's livelihood.
On the one hand, we consider prosecutorial independence so important that allegedly that is because judges (not our elected public officials) gave prosecutors absolute immunity for MALICIOUS and CORRUPT acts in office.
On the other hand, we value prosecutorial independence so low that we keep prosecutors' own livelihood in the hands of the very people who prosecutors may have to investigate and indict.
Immunity for illegal acts of prosecutors in office, but no protection for doing their jobs. Very logical.
And, the question remains.
Who are Judge Boeckmann's betting friends that the state and federal prosecutors are protecting?
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