Wow, that is one wigged out judge. I know these two clips might represent only a tiny window of her career, but they are enough to see she is not legislating according to law. Exactly how much lenience do judges have for decision making of this kind? If she could produce presidence to her decisions that is one thing. This is completely about her own personal opinions. Talk about ripping the basic Constitutional rights of Religion and Free Speech apart.

Wait a minute. Let’s take a closer look at these two clips:

In the first one, she says I have a prejudice against deer hunters, so I’m recusing myself from this case. Isn’t that what a judge is supposed to do? If they have a bias, they shouldn’t hear a case that might be influenced by that bias. That’s good judicial temperament. As for her little spat with the man at the end, if I was a judge and someone yawned at me and stormed out of my courtroom, I’d be upset too.

In the second one, she is put in a difficult position. The mother of this girl–who has legal custody, by the way–doesn’t want her 7-about-to-turn-8 daughter to be baptized. The father–who doesn’t have custody–does. The judge compromises. She says that 8 is to young for the child to make the decision, which makes sense, especially since the custodial parent is against the baptism. Since 8 is too young, she says that the child may make her own decision when she is 12. That seems reasonable. You have to think of the child. What are her odds of staying active in church if she is baptized at 8 against her mother’s wishes? Her odds increase substantially if she waits until she’s 12. I don’t have a problem with that ruling. As for the “dunking” comment, name one missionary who hasn’t referred to baptism as dunking. She’s not any more disrespectful than that.

I think that you’re being clouded in your judgment of this judge. Remember, judges don’t judge by religious belief or by prejudices. They have to be impartial. That includes ruling against the predominant religion of the state in some cases (be it deer hunting or Mormonism :) ). In both of these cases, I think she was right. You’ll have to find more evidence to convince me that she’s wacky.

“She clearly abused her authority during this tirade.”

I’m not sure. We don’t know the context of the case. It’s hard to make that determination with what we have on the tape. I’m not saying that she didn’t abuse her authority, but it’s certainly not “clear” by what we have here.

“I am, however, concerned with her injecting her personal life, opinion, experience, and bias into the matter. “I wish somebody would have done that for me!” Clearly she is not impartial, and therefore any ruling she gives is biased.”

Is the ruling she handed down incorrect? That should be the indicator of bias, not a statement that she made. I agree with her ruling, and I’m LDS and was baptized at 8, which I don’t regret. Does that cloud my judgment of this case? No. I thought that the judge was fair in this instance.

“I think she oversteps her bounds of impartiality when she infuses her comments and statements with her personal life and opinions.”

But, that’s not her “judicial temperament,” is it? It’s her opinion, which judges are allowed to have as long as they are impartial in the judgments that they hand down.

If this is true, however, it says far more of her as a judge than the videos do. Unfortunately, the Trib only gives the allegation, not the context or evidence, so we don’t know if it’s true or not.

This is not the worst of her behavior, she criminaly and secretly modified the sentences of a sex offender. 40% of attorney’s think she is biased. 46% think she is incompetent. The videos above are not even close to her worst illegal and corupt behavior.

I still think that if a judge infuses personal opinion and personal life into the ruling, no matter how much it might be following the law, then it shows a lack of judicial restraint. She doesn’t quote any prescident, unlike Multifacited who was at least calm, but screams biased opinions about her own life. If this is normal for her, and her abismal behavior in these two cases don’t make me believe otherwise no matter what context might be behind them, than she should recuse herself from ALL cases.

Of course, we should do that is she doesn’t.

Um, that order is of questionable constitutionality. The attorney threw in the ‘agreement of the parties’ clause, and that might get it by, but there’ve been several cases recently in context of custody cases where judges have allowed their own personal views of a certain religion to creep in and taint their judgement. They are consistently being overturned on appeals. I have a feeling that, if challenged this one stands a fair chance of being overturned.

A judge can only prohibit an action if it poses a physical or psychological risk to the child–not because she feels that 8 is too young to make such a decision or wishes that someone had ‘stuck up for her.’ Whether a child changes their mind at 9, 19, or 99, their baptism does not impede their agency to practice another faith or have their name removed from the rolls of the church.

She has no leg to stand on legally speaking (at least her own words didn’t; the attorney in the case is the one who tossed in the clause that made it possibly allowable), and frankly she has no leg to stand on logically.

What nonsense.