Judge Campbell is a former prosecutor and advertised herself in the election campaign in her Southern state as a "blue-eyed assassin" - not so subtly pointing also to her white skin.
Judge Campbell never notified the defendant of the increased charge.
There is an update to the story about #JudgeAmandaCampbell: she was reportedly indicted on four felony charges and suspended from the bench.
Judge Campbell has been charged with four counts of official misconduct in two separate cases and is accused of lying and misusing her authority.
Judge Campbell also reportedly commenced a sua sponte contempt proceedings against an attorney for not showing up for a hearing in a divorce case while the records show the attorney was not notified of that hearing (the judge's personel's mistake).
Instead of correcting the error and apologizing to the attorney, her name is #KristieAnderson, Judge Campbell instead sought to lie about the attorney's alleged misconduct: that "Anderson was disrespectful, showed disdain for the judge and yelled at court personnel — none of which was alleged in the show cause order nor was Anderson ever accused of such conduct".
Moreover, after attorney Anderson, through her own defense attorney, challenged Judge Sampson, Judge Sampson reportedly advised attorney Anderson's opposing counsel in the divorce case to file a contempt proceeding against attorney Anderson, which constituted legal advice by the judge in that action and acting as an advocate for the opponent of attorney Anderson's client in the divorce action, not to mention that when a judge advises a part to file a certain motion, that constitutes a clear pre-judgement, as there is no doubt as to how the judge is going to rule on that motion.
The local press, The New Sentinel, reported since last fall "how [JudgeSamspson]
- levied fees against the wrongfully accused for lawyers they did not use,
- ordered children removed from their homes without authority,
- barred people from coming into court and then ordered them arrested for failing to appear, and
- began charging people a fee for drug testing that had not been authorized by any government body as required by law".
It took a year to get Judge Campbell indicted, even though her misconduct was pretty obvious. Well, at least the indictment happened.
We will now see whether Judge Campbell will be truly prosecuted and brought to justice, or instead whether she will be let go with an easy plea to something low and insignificant, and whether she will be taken off the bench (as she should) and disbarred (as she should).
Yet, for the present time, I am glad that the tide is turning, and that judges who committed misconduct are held accountable.
Yet, #JudgeAmandaCampbell's case, the criminal indictment is still very rare across the United States, the usual outcome is that judges can do anything in "their" courtrooms under the protection of absolute judicial immunity for MALICIOUS and CORRUPT acts (as Judge Campbell obviously did), hoping that nobody will ever dare to charge them criminally, and if they are not charged criminally, they will never be disciplined and lawsuits against them will be dismissed on immunity grounds, often with sanctions and attorney fees against their victims.
It is obvious that Judge Campbell was charged as a result of outrage in the media and social media.
And, outrage in the media and social media exposing judicial misconduct should continue. Only this way we can clean up the act of our government, and the most powerful branch of that government, the judiciary.
Without that exposure and pressure, the "honorables" can only do what they already did - give themselves immunity for malicious and corrupt acts and act based on that immunity - maliciously and corruptly.