Judge contest has had it all

Of the 39 district judges in Idaho up for re-election Tuesday, most will rest easy as election results stream in.

Only two judges in the state are being challenged in the primary, including 1st District Judge John Mitchell of Coeur d’Alene. He’s fighting to keep the bench in what may be the most talked about local race on the ballot in Tuesday’s primary election.

Mitchell and his opponent, Rami Amaro, each has raised more campaign money than all three candidates combined in the only other contested judicial race this election. While 7th District Judge James Herndon of Blackfoot has raised $6,000, Mitchell’s war chest has grown to nearly $40,000.

Amaro, a Coeur d’Alene attorney, has received nearly $22,000 in contributions. And she has others spending big bucks on her behalf.

The race has generated as much interest and controversy as it has money. Within days of Amaro’s announcement, her qualifications for the judgeship were questioned and formally challenged. Mitchell came under intense scrutiny from the get-go for being disqualified from hearing criminal cases more often than all other judges in the district combined and for the number of his decisions reversed by the Idaho Supreme Court.

His opponent and her supporters characterized Mitchell as being soft on sex offenders.

Amaro’s opponents, meanwhile, took issue with everything from a lack of experience in criminal law to the color of her lipstick to her contribution to a Republican party fund-raiser.

At times, the campaign has appeared to have less decorum than a high school student election.

“I expect both of us will be questioned by the Judicial Council as far as taking a stance on different issues,” Amaro said. She said some statements she and Mitchell have made could be construed to indicate how they’d rule on a matter in the future. “We’re both probably on the edge.”

Mitchell said he would expect to be questioned by the Idaho Judicial Council, which recommends removal or discipline of judges, only if the panel finds merit in judicial complaints Hayden Lake resident Bob Siegwarth has said he filed against Mitchell. Siegwarth has alleged, among other things, that Mitchell used court stationery to promote his campaign, made inaccurate statements regarding his disqualifications from criminal cases, handed out prewritten letters to the editor and is being improperly endorsed by candidates for other offices.

“Based on what I’ve seen, there’s no merit to those complaints,” Mitchell said. “I have, at all times, operated well within the bounds of the judicial canons of ethics.”

The intense interest in the race could just be due to the fact that judges rarely face opposition, said Hayden Mayor Ron McIntire, treasurer for the Amaro campaign.

“It’s good to have a little competition,” said McIntire, who paid more than $3,000 for newspaper ads endorsing Amaro. “They’re basically appointed for life unless you get a majority of voters to turn them out.”

Siegwarth, who was represented by Amaro in a case that was before Mitchell, said he thinks the case of suspected killer and child molester Joseph Duncan fueled interest in the campaign. Mitchell was disqualified from hearing the case, and his critics say he favors rehabilitation over incarceration of sex offenders.

Siegwarth is also unhappy with Mitchell’s handling of his own civil suit. Mitchell’s granting of summary judgment in the case, not in Siegwarth’s favor, was reversed by the Idaho Supreme Court.

Citizens Promoting Judicial Accountability, a political action committee chaired by Siegwarth, raised more than $10,000 to purchase newspaper and radio ads attacking the judge’s record.

Members of the PAC were collectively nicknamed “The Tinfoil Brigade” by some citizen commentators on Spokesman-Review columnist Dave Oliveria’s blog, Huckleberries Online. Individually, they became known as “tinfoilers,” a reference to conspiracy theorists or paranoids who line their hats with foil to block unwelcome brain scan rays from aliens or the government.

Coeur d’Alene resident Dan Gookin, a regular on the blog, said he usually isn’t too interested in judicial contests. When a judge is up for re-election, Gookin said, he usually votes no because of his cynical nature. After reading comments that Amaro’s supporters made against the judge, Gookin said he’s calling people he hasn’t talked to in years, urging them to vote for Mitchell.

“It just got to the point the other side was saying so many obnoxious and outrageous things on the blog,” Gookin said. “If this is the kind of outrageous passion they’re displaying on this, I’m going to weigh in and do what I can to support the judge.”

Mitchell said he didn’t want to speculate on why the race has been the focus of so much attention.

As for Amaro’s take on it, “It’s something new and that attracts attention,” she said. “You have a whole slew of things: hometown boy versus Texan. You have female versus male.”

Gookin said he believes Oliveria’s blog was the stewing pot for much of the controversy. At one point in the election, Amaro asked her supporters to stop commenting for awhile so things would simmer down.

She went to Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas with concerns after a comment, which she believed insinuated her kids could be kidnapped, was made by a wisecracking commentator from the Spokane Valley. Amaro said she knows it was a joke, but she didn’t think it was funny.

When commentators on the blog made fun of a picture on Mitchell’s campaign Web site, of the judge holding a giant fish, the picture was quickly replaced with one of Mitchell and his dog.

At one point, Amaro’s picture was posted online side by side with a surveillance photo of a female bank robber. Mugshots of Amaro and Mitchell were pasted on the heads of sparring elk and the photo posted on Oliveria’s blog by one of the citizen commentators.

Mitchell has said he tries not to read the blog and doesn’t put much stock into the comments, mostly posted under pseudonyms. Amaro said she was bothered when the attacks became personal.

“Parts of (the campaign) have been very disappointing in terms of the negativity that’s bubbled to the surface,” Amaro said. “It’s been an interesting, exciting experience I’m glad I’ve had. But to be frank, something I never want to go through again.”