Winnipeg Free Press Editorial: Manitoba Female Judge Has To Answer Questions About Her Integrity!
Answer questions about judge
By: Editorial
Posted: 2/09/2010 1:00 AM
It is tempting to dismiss the details of the sex life of a Manitoba judge as the distressing, collateral damage done by one man’s deluded belief the justice system is aligned against him. But the affair that caused Lori Douglas to temporarily step down Wednesday from the Court of Queen’s Bench raises legitimate concerns about her appointment in 2005.
Justice Douglas was appointed to the bench two years after her husband, lawyer Jack King, paid former client Alex Chapman $25,000 to tear up the pornographic pictures of his wife that he had sent to him. The selection process demands that candidates disclose anything in their past that may cast a negative light on them or the judiciary.
The pictures were posted on an Internet porn website. That should have caused the Manitoba judicial advisory committee, which recommends appointees to the federal justice minister, great discomfort. Mr. King settled with Mr. Chapman, computer programmer, after the latter complained to his law firm that Mr. King tried to coerce him to have sex with Ms. Douglas. The complaint was made shortly after Mr. King completed Mr. Chapman’s divorce proceedings.
Judge Douglas may well be ensnared undeservedly, but she knew at the time of her screening for the bench that her history counted. She had a duty to disclose. Mr. King’s lawyer insisted Wednesday that she did, raising the question about the committee’s deliberations and decision.
Would-be judges are subjected to real scrutiny during application. Six references are required, along with declarations on specific personal, financial and professional issues. The provincial law society must disclose any blight on a lawyer’s record, and is asked if there is anything about a candidate the committee should know. Candidates are asked point blank if they are having money problems, are in arrears on child support or taxes, or have ever had problems with alcohol or drugs. Short of a public hearing, the vetting hurdles are intimidating.
There is good reason for this. Judges are subject to public scrutiny. Their decisions can turn on their opinion of the credibility of those who come before them. A justice minister, in selecting appropriate candidates for the bench, has to protect the reputation of the justice system: a federal court judge who cheats on his income tax return is hardly the guy to deliberate on the conduct of those Revenue Canada accuses of tax fraud.
To be sure, Mr. Chapman’s conduct raises serious doubts about his motive and his credibility. He could have complained to the law society in 2003; instead, he took Mr. King’s money. He filed complaints in July to the law society and to the Judicial Council of Canada because, he said, he is tired of “protecting Jack King and Lori Douglas,” implying he still is being wrongly done by. He filed lawsuits seeking $67 million damages on Wednesday.
But the public’s interest lies in being assured judges are beyond the reach of such troubles. Aside from being held to a higher standard, judges — like anyone wielding power or influence in public office — cannot be seen to be vulnerable to extortion or bribes. The publishing of pornographic pictures on the Internet presents an abiding threat that should not have been ignored nor dismissed.
There were many within the legal community who were aware of the King/Douglas troubles. But questions linger about how Lori Douglas’ travails passed the sniff test of the judicial advisory committee. It would seem they would have disqualified even an innocent party doubly victimized by the unsavoury actions of others.
Barring conflict, the Canadian Judicial Council, of which Judge Douglas is a member, should be capable of hearing the complaint against her and must do so promptly. For his part, federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson needs to launch an independent review of Judge Douglas’ judicial appointment and report publicly on the matter. Canadians need to have faith that appointees cannot be held hostage by skeletons rattling in the closet.
Winnipeg Free Press Article: Are There Double Standards When A Male Is A Victim Of Sexual Harassment?
Winnipeg Free Press – PRINT EDITION
Burden too much to carry: accuser
Says he’s been unfairly painted as an extortionist
By: Gabrielle Giroday
Posted: 2/09/2010
KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Alex Chapman says he waited until a civil matter ended recently to come forward.
The man whose allegations sparked a scandal that has rocked the province’s legal community defended on Wednesday his decision to disclose his claim a Manitoba judge and her lawyer husband tried to lure him sexually.
Alex Chapman, 44, told the Free Press he’s carried a heavy burden for the past seven years. Although the incidents happened in 2003, he said he’s kept quiet because he feared the judge could influence a ongoing civil matter that only ended earlier this year.
Chapman alleges his divorce lawyer, Jack King, groomed and harassed him about having sex with his wife, Lori Douglas, a lawyer at the same firm. Douglas became a Queen’s Bench Justice in 2005. He said he’s angry as being painted as someone who was trying to extort money from the couple, and said King and Douglas both tried to seduce him.
Eric Chapman, who now works as a computer specialist, said the couple were “ganging up” on him. “My body would never do what you don’t want to do, even if you’re hypnotized,” he said.
“The guy was just torturing me mentally, to the point where I actually don’t even know what I was doing.”
Chapman said he was disgusted with pornographic photos King allegedly sent him, advertising his wife for sex with black men.
He said Douglas never said anything directly sexual to him.
However, Chapman said, Douglas said she looked forward to meeting him later.
He alleged Douglas discussed his legal troubles with him and told him details of her life, like a new horse she was getting.
He said out of desperation he accepted a $25,000 payment from King in exchange for a promise he wouldn’t discuss the alleged incidents and would destroy the lewd pictures.
“I just wanted to get rid of these people harassing me for sexual favours,” he said.
Chapman was involved in a civil matter that recently ended and he feared Douglas could influence the results of the hearing.
“The initial discussion I had with my lawyer was that the judge… presiding is a friend of Lori Douglas,” he said.
“And because of that, it appears to me that I will never have a fair trial anywhere in Manitoba if Lori Douglas is a friend of every judge, you know what I mean?”
Chapman’s allegations are unproven. There is no evidence of improper conduct by Douglas while she was on the bench.
CBC News Interracial Sex Scandal: Black Man Says White Female Manitoba Judge & Her Husband Sexual Harassed Him!
Manitoba judge in scandal steps aside
Last Updated: Wednesday, September 1, 2010 | 9:56 PM CST
CBC News
Lori Douglas was appointed a judge in 2005. (CBC)A Manitoba family court judge involved in a scandal over nude photos of her that appeared online has requested to be temporarily relieved of her duties as a sitting justice of Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench.
Queen’s Bench Justice Marc Monnin said Wednesday that Lori Douglas, an associate chief justice, will “remain in her position in an administrative capacity” as the Canadian Judicial Council investigates a complaint against her.
Douglas requested to be relieved “in the interests of the judiciary and of the court,” Monnin said in an emailed statement.
Winnipegger Alexander Chapman, 44, made a complaint to the judicial council in July.
‘The test for removal is whether or not a judge has the confidence of the public to discharge the duties of their office.’—Normand Sabourin, Canadian Judicial Council
Chapman alleges that Douglas’s husband, Winnipeg lawyer Jack King, 64, harassed him in 2003 by pressing him to have sex with Douglas, who was also a lawyer at the time.
Douglas was appointed a judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench (family division) on May 19, 2005. She was appointed as an Associate Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench (family division) on May 14, 2009, which mean she also became a member of the Canadian Judicial Council, an agency that sets policies for the federal judicial system.
Douglas has declined to comment, saying it’s a private matter.
The executive director of the judicial council said Wednesday it would take about three months to complete an investigation into Chapman’s allegations.
The complaint will be investigated by a chief justice from outside Manitoba, Sabourin said, but if it’s deemed serious enough, it could be heard at a public inquiry.
“The inquiry would hear witnesses, review all the scope of the allegations against the judge and would determine if it’s a matter that warrants a judge’s removal,” said Normand Sabourin.
“The test for removal is whether or not a judge has the confidence of the public to discharge the duties of their office … so that is the ultimate test,” he said.
A federally appointed judge can only be removed upon order of Parliament.
Complainant seeks $67M
Chapman has made a separate complaint to the Manitoba Law Society about King’s alleged conduct.
Alexander Chapman has launched three lawsuits seeking $67 million in damages. (CBC)On Wednesday, Chapman filed separate lawsuits against King for $10 million and against Douglas for $7 million. He is also suing the law firm Thompson Dorfman Sweatman, where the couple used to work, for $50 million.
He told CBC News on Wednesday that he couldn’t live with what he says happened any longer.
“I’m standing here at the courthouse and I’m very nervous … I’ve been like this for seven years,” he said.
“I just want people to know that this happened to me and it was real for me.”
He said he was relieved to have his story out in the open.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2010/09/01/man-judge-steps-aside.html#ixzz0yHgOI0w0
Toronto Star Article: White Manitoba Judge Performed Oral Sex Wearing Chains, Bondage, Accused Of Sexual Harassment!
Nude photos raise questions about private lives of judges
Judge Lori Douglas will work in an administrative capacity until a complaint to the judicial council is resolved.
SUPPLIED PHOTO
Related
Allegations that nude photographs of a senior Manitoba judge in bondage, chains and performing oral sex were posted on an Internet porn site have kindled debate about how much of a judge’s private life is private.
The Canadian Judicial Council’s Ethical Principles for Judges — which judges are encouraged but not required to follow — say they should strive to conduct themselves with integrity and avoid conduct that would diminish public respect for the judiciary.
Can someone who poses naked with a whip be considered a person of integrity, or does the question open the door to inappropriate moral judgments about an individual’s personal life?
“Do we imagine that judges never disrobe or that judges never have sex lives? Of course they do,” said Bruce Ryder, an Osgoode Hall Law School professor who teaches in the area of judicial independence and ethics.
Ryder worries that “prurience” and “moral prudery” will drive the debate over whether Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Manitoba should be removed from office.
Manitoba Chief Justice Marc Monnin announced Wednesday that Douglas, of the court’s family division, has asked to be “temporarily relieved of her duties as a sitting judge” and will work in an administrative capacity until a complaint to the judicial council is resolved.
Less than 24 hours earlier, the CBC had reported that sexually explicit photographs of Douglas are part of the complaint made in July by Alexander Chapman, a 44-year-old computer specialist, who says he was harassed by the judge’s husband to have sex with her.
Chapman said after he retained Winnipeg family lawyer Jack King in 2003 to handle his divorce, King showed him about 30 nude photographs of Douglas and supplied him with a password for a porn website devoted to interracial sex.
Posted on a section of the website entitled “Our White Princesses” were naked photos of Douglas, then a lawyer at King’s firm, Thompson Dorfman Sweatman, Chapman said.
The CBC said it has seen an ad from a website known as “Darkcavern” that featured nude photos of Douglas and sought a “smooth black male or Mexican” to join her and King for “multi-partner” sex in Cancun in 2002.
King said he was depressed over the deaths of his best friend and his brother at the time, and Douglas did not know he had posted the photographs
Chapman accepted a $25,000 settlement from the lawyer in July 2003 that required Chapman to delete photographs of Douglas from his personal computer.
“He lied about that,” Bill Gange, King’s lawyer, told the Star, adding the pictures were removed from the Internet prior to the 2003 settlement.
Douglas was appointed a judge in 2005 and promoted to associate chief justice last year.
The conduct of judges prior to appointment can “absolutely” have a bearing on their fitness to remain in office, said Norman Sabourin, the judicial council’s executive director.
The Supreme Court of Canada made that clear in 2001 in upholding a decision to remove Justice Richard Therrien from the Court of Quebec.
Therrien failed to disclose he had been convicted 25 years earlier of helping hide four FLQ members involved in kidnapping and murdering cabinet minister Pierre Laporte.
The court said the public demands “virtually irreproachable conduct from anyone performing a judicial function.” But questions persist about where to draw the line.
Should a judge be kicked off the bench for adultery? What about a woman who pays her way through law school by pole dancing? Is she disqualified from being a judge?
If a lawyer deliberately posts nude photos of herself on Facebook or on a website it could later undermine public confidence in her ability to serve as a judge, said Lorne Sossin, dean of law at Osgoode.
However, if the photos were taken in the context of an inherently private relationship and posted without her consent, Sossin said, it’s hard to imagine she should be judged negatively.
Sossin suggested it would also be unfair to find Douglas unfit for judicial office simply on the basis of her sexual predilections. At an earlier time, the same might have been said about homosexuals, he added.
Adam Dodek, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, who writes on legal ethics, said turning judicial appointments advisory committees into morality police probably isn’t where the country wants to go.
“If she (Douglas) wasn’t aware of photos being posted on the Internet and she wasn’t involved in this plan to try to seduce her husband’s client, then what you’re really left with is somebody who is engaged in, let’s say ‘sexually graphic’ actions that some people might find offensive,” Dodek said Wednesday.
That said, Dodek believes the advisory committees, which recommend candidates for judicial office, are lagging behind human resources specialists who routinely check social networking sites and the Internet in vetting job applicants.
Ryder, of Osgoode, believes if a judge isn’t involved in anything illegal or something that could give rise to a conflict of interest — such as a citizens’ crusade against city hall — their private lives should not be up for discussion.
“We really have to start by asking ourselves, what exactly has Justice Douglas done wrong?
“Based on what we know so far,” said Ryder, “maybe she deserves our sympathy more than our condemnation, because it seems she has been the victim of an egregious invasion of privacy.”
Good News: The American Jerk Andy Roddick Is Eliminated From The 2010 US Open!
Last night, American Andy Roddick proved he is the biggest jerk in men’s tennis. Roddick has a serious attitude problem and he needs anger management counseling. Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia defeated Roddick 3-6 7-5 6-3 7-6 in the second round of the US Open. Tipsarevic is ranked 44th in the world and he overpowered Roddick by pounding 64 winners. Roddick’s strategy was pathetic he was too passive and defensive that’s the real reason he lost!
This is the first time Tipsarevic advanced to the third round of the US Open. Two years ago at Wimbledon, Tipsarevic also ousted Roddick in the second round as well. Roddick was angry because a lineswoman said he foot faulted. According to the television replay, Roddick did indeed double-fault. Roddick’s behaviour was extremely unprofessional he confronted the lineswoman, yelled at the chair umpire, and he imitated Tipsarevic’s grunt.
Will the USTA fine Andy Roddick for his deleterious behaviour? Of course not because Roddick is a white American male! However, Serena Williams was defaulted from the US Open last year when she got into an argument with a lineswoman. So what is the difference? The USTA lacks credibility here!
The real reason Andy Roddick exploded was because he was angry he was losing to Tipsarevic. However, I credit Janko for being mentally tougher than Roddick and he was determined to win the match. The sweetest revenge for Janko is he did not allow Roddick’s unprofessionalism to affect him!
Andy Roddick is twenty-eight years old he is a veteran, it is time he grew up and acted like an adult! Roddick lacks the mental toughness of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal because he doesn’t have the maturity to focus and win big matches. Roddick is ranked in the lower half of the ATP Tour top ten for a reason, he is a good player but he is not a champion.
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal would never allow a foot fault distract them from winning a tennis match. Federer and Nadal are gentlemen on and off the tennis court. Roddick is a creep and the USTA should fine Roddick for his unprofessional conduct on the tennis court. I guess, because Andy Roddick is a white American male his bad behaviour is totally palatable. Time is running out for Andy Roddick it appears he will just be a one slam wonder.
Gayblackcanada 
