Judicial Sensitivity and Cheerleading
Two Washington judges were recently sanctioned by the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct---one for cheerleading, the other for religious insensitivity. To be specific, Tacoma Municipal Court Judge David Ladenburg threw a Muslim woman out of his courtroom because she declined to remove her head scarf. Then, elsewhere in the state, when Pierce County Superior Court Judge Beverly Grant was waiting to sentence a man for manslaughter, she asked everyone in the courtroom to join her in a rousing cheer for the Seattle Sea Hawks. The cheering session was not considered cheering at all by the friend and family of the man heading for prison, or the friends and family of the 28-year-old man he killed. CHRISTINE CLARRIDGE, the Seattle Times