WA: banished from courtroom 208

From The Olympian:

Judge refuses to sit on prosecutor’s cases -
Hicks, Soukup had disagreements in past court cases

For the second time in six months, a Thurston County judge refuses to hear any cases filed by one of the county’s deputy prosecutors... Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks is maintaining his ban against Senior Deputy Prosecutor Dave Soukup... The judge abruptly recused himself from any of the attorney’s cases, saying his decision was because of “prior actions” for which he had sanctioned the prosecutor... The judge’s decision means special arrangements have to be made for another judge to hear Soukup’s cases. It’s a small inconvenience for a court system already short on space and judges, and a subject of courthouse gossip...

Hicks said his decision relates, in part, to a case earlier this year that Soukup handled involving a woman accused of forgery. Soukup had filed a declaration accusing the defense attorney of recording interviews with two of the state’s witnesses without their consent, which is illegal in Washington. Soukup based his accusation on information that one of the witnesses relayed to him but he did not verify it independently, court documents say. The defense attorney, Bruce Finlay of Shelton, produced interview transcripts and statements showing the contrary. The judge was asked to rule on the matter.

In January, Hicks sanctioned Soukup, finding that the allegations were false and pursued without a “scintilla of investigation.” He noted that the accusations needlessly sullied the defense attorney’s image. “Such an unverified allegation that another attorney engages in unlawful activity is an abuse of the judicial system and hurts us all,” the judge wrote in his findings...

Submitted without comment (for reasons that are not mysterious - I have to work in that courthouse, you know)