Judge Reprimanded for Blasting Prosecutors Who Won Cases Over Atty Wife
A North Carolina judge was reprimanded today for the second time in less than a year—this time over outbursts directed at prosecutors.
The prosecutors who the North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission say were the objects of Judge Timothy Smith’s ire had won convictions in separate trials against defendants represented by Smith’s defense attorney wife, the Charlotte Observer reported.
“Judge Smith allowed his family relationship to influence his conduct in a public setting, and Judge Smith knew or should have known such outbursts were both intimidating and inappropriate,” the commission wrote in its reprimand.
Smith accepted the reprimand and agreed not to retaliate against anyone who cooperated in the commission’s investigation, the Observer reported.
Smith is accused of sarcastically congratulating one prosecutor for wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayers’ money to jail a drug user, and telling another prosecutor that a police officer in her case had lied on the stand.
In April of last year, the commission accused Smith of misusing his office to help his sister by asking a clerk to add her domestic violence case to an early docket, according to the reprimand.
Smith said in a statement: “At no time did I try to interfere with an ongoing case and regret that my actions may have caused any member of the district attorney’s staff or the public to feel that I was attempting to interfere with the administration of justice.”
