Haynes becomes 1st District judge

If anybody deserves the title of “honorable,” it’s Lansing Haynes, longtime colleague Barry Black said Friday, just moments before Haynes became North Idaho’s newest district judge.

“He has been somebody who’s inspired people who worked with him,” said Black, a Kootenai County deputy prosecutor. “This is a huge loss for our office … it’s a great, great gain for everybody here.”

A dozen judges in black robes joined a room full of attorneys, officials and Haynes’ friends and family at his swearing-in ceremony Friday.

After 1st District Judge John Luster read him the oath, Haynes was helped into his robe for the first time by his wife and children.

He struggled with the zipper and then turned to his wife, Lee, for help. Then he kissed her.

The new judge thanked everyone, including the public defenders he argued cases against in the 18 years he was the county’s chief deputy prosecutor.

“We’re colleagues in the sense we’re sort of like professional wrestling stars,” Haynes quipped. He said they were “like adversaries in the ring … but all part of the same big traveling show.”

He said he wanted to keep the promise he’d made to Gov. James Risch, who appointed 50-year-old Haynes to the newly created judgeship: To remember “on the bench it’s the people’s work, the people’s time, the people’s cases.

“I’m just there to serve them,” he said.

With Haynes’ investiture, Kootenai County has one more judge and one less courtroom for jury trials.

The judgeship was created last session by the Legislature to help handle the court’s increasing caseload.

Adding another judge in an already-cramped courthouse has made for an interesting exercise in logistics.

Haynes won’t have to work out of a broom closet but instead will use a jurors’ room in the Justice Building.

The loss of the room, where jurors would deliberate, means the county has less space to hold jury trials.

“The addition of a new district judge will be a big help in terms of handling the caseload,” said 1st District Judge Charles Hosack, the district’s administrative judge. He said courtroom space will be tighter than ever.

Hosack said it’s likely that the county will use the extra courtroom at the Kootenai County Jail, where the Joseph Duncan triple-murder trial is scheduled, more often than before.

Because Haynes was most recently the county’s chief deputy prosecutor, he won’t be able to preside over cases that started when he was still in the office.

Criminal cases are filed daily, though, and Hosack said it won’t be long before Haynes will be able to take on a criminal caseload in Kootenai County.

In the meantime, he will be assigned cases in other counties in the 1st District and can hear civil matters.

Though the Legislature funded Haynes’ position, no funding was provided for the judge’s two clerks or court reporter. Those costs are being covered by the county.Haynes’ departure from the prosecutor’s office comes just weeks before the scheduled start of Joseph Duncan’s triple-murder trial. Haynes was Prosecutor Bill Douglas’ co-counsel in the case, along with Rick Baughman.

Baughman was promoted to chief deputy prosecutor, and attorney Ken Stone was hired for Baughman’s position.

Baughman, a University of Idaho graduate, has worked in the prosecutor’s office for 13 years. Prior to that, he practiced civil law in Lewiston for two years.

“He’s been a real workhorse for the last 13 years, handling some of the most significant cases we have had,” Douglas said recently.

Stone had a civil and criminal practice in Sandpoint for six years and had just recently moved the practice to Coeur d’Alene.