Trio Seeks Part-Time Judgeship’s Full-Time Workload

Three candidates want a half-time Stevens County District Court judgeship with more work than a full-time judge is supposed to be able to handle.

Based on statewide averages, the Washington Court Administrator’s Office said the Stevens County District Court workload justified 1.2 judges in 1995.

Incumbent Judge Pamela Payne said she thinks the job should be 75 percent to full time, but cash-starved county commissioners don’t plan to increase her annual pay of $45,000.

She was among five candidates commissioners interviewed for the appointment to replace Dave McGrane, who resigned May 1. Two others, Patty St. Clair and Robert Simeone, also are seeking the post.

While Simeone and St. Clair note that Payne has been on the bench only a few months, Payne says she has spent more time in District Court than either of them. She was a Stevens County deputy prosecutor for 13 years before going into private practice in October 1993.

Payne, 47, had just graduated from the University of Montana Law School when she joined the prosecutor’s office in 1979. She and her husband, Bill, have lived in the Clayton area since then.

Payne maintains her private practice, but said she cut it “way back” and now takes only civil cases.

If elected, Payne said she would encourage the District Court administrator’s office to handle cases faster. Also, she is considering the use of arbitration in some cases to improve efficiency and is working on a brochure to explain court procedures.

St. Clair, 38, proposes to bring the judge, attorneys and therapists together to tackle domestic violence cases as soon as they occur. She served on the Stevens County Domestic Violence Task Force and the advisory board of Colville’s Family Support Center.

St. Clair’s husband, Cliff Hopper, was charged with assaulting her on March 27, 1994, but she says he did nothing wrong.

At the time, police said Hopper, St. Clair and a witness all told them Hopper pushed St. Clair onto the parking lot of the King Cole’s bar, where she and her husband attended a male striptease show. The couple had been drinking, police said.

Superior Court Judge Fred Stewart made a 1 a.m. ruling to get Hopper out of jail after he was arrested for fourth-degree domestic assault. Then, against his orders, Prosecutor Jerry Wetle said, a deputy prosecutor dismissed the charge a day before abruptly resigning.

The deputy prosecutor, Charles Burns, said St. Clair refused to testify. She says she would have testified that she fell accidentally.

“I have been assaulted before, so I know the difference,” St. Clair said, adding that she pressed charges against a previous husband in 1985 in Kitsap County.

St. Clair is the daughter of former Stevens County Sheriff Chan St. Clair. She has lived in Stevens County all her life except for 1982 through 1989.

During those years, she earned her law degree from the University of Puget Sound, worked in two private law firms and prosecuted cases as an assistant Port Orchard city attorney.

St. Clair and Hopper have four teenage children.

Simeone, 43, has two young daughters with his wife and law partner, Helen Hokom. The couple came to Colville 16 years ago after living several years in Idaho.

He grew up in south Florida, earned an undergraduate degree at Tulane University in New Orleans and finished his law degree from the University of Idaho in 1981.

Simeone said his judicial experience is limited to “refereeing my children when they get into a spat,” but said he is “stubbornly independent” and “a quick study for a fact pattern.” He considers himself efficient and a good communicator.

“More than anything, people who walk into that courtroom want to know that their case was heard and that their case was important to the judge,” he said.

, DataTimes