Judgeship up to the voters

John Mitchell says the 4 1/2 years he has spent as 1st District judge has been a “growing experience.”

But perhaps nothing has been more so for the 47-year-old than his campaign to stay on the bench. Mitchell has been forced to defend his record, which includes being disqualified from more than 400 cases, including nearly 200 criminal cases in 2005.

The four other 1st District judges combined haven’t been disqualified anywhere near as often as Mitchell.

Mitchell has been disqualified under a rule the Idaho Supreme Court reinstated in 2004. Attorneys can disqualify, or reject, a judge without citing a reason; about 70 attorneys have exercised that right with Mitchell.

Some have disqualified the judge repeatedly. Bradford Chapman, an attorney with the Kootenai County public defender’s office, has disqualified Mitchell nearly 50 times – for every case of his that was assigned to the judge since the Supreme Court rule was reinstated.

Mitchell said he has asked why he’s so often disqualified. One attorney from the prosecution told him he tends to be “too rehabilitative,” and two from the public defender’s office told him he’s “too stringent as far as sending people to prison.”

“The two opinions are divergent,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said he will always tell a defendant about the rehabilitation or treatment that’s available, even if he’s sentencing them to prison.

“I feel very strongly if I don’t encourage them to get that help, whether I send them away for one year or 10 years, they will get out in no better shape than when they went in and probably more likely to commit similar crimes whenever they get out,” Mitchell said.

He said he was probably more prone to put defendants on probation during his first couple years as judge and more likely to give them second chances if they violated terms of probation. “I think that’s just experience on the bench and seeing what works,” he said.

Until January 2005, Mitchell said treatment for sex offenders wasn’t available in prison. Now that that treatment is available in confinement, Mitchell said he’s more likely to sentence sex offenders to prison.

Though his critics say he’s soft on sex offenders, Mitchell said he looked at every sex offense case he has dealt with – 45 in all – and maintains the allegations against him are “totally false.” He said he looked at each sentence and how it compared with the recommendations from the prosecutor, defense attorney and with Idaho Department of Correction’s recommendations in the Pre-Sentence Investigation.

“Usually the DOC winds up being somewhere between the defense’s recommendations and the prosecutor’s recommendations,” Mitchell said. “On average, I am much more aligned with what the prosecutor was recommending.”

In five cases, Mitchell said he imposed sentences “significantly more” than what prosecutors recommended.

Though his opponent has criticized him for having nearly half of all cases that were appealed to the Idaho Supreme Court reversed, Mitchell said he didn’t feel the numbers were statistically significant.

“If I get reversed on the next three or affirmed on the next three, it changes things 80 points if you look at it as a batting average,” Mitchell said, referring to the term some of his opponent’s supporters have used. “An attorney is only going to appeal the close issue. As a trial judge, you don’t get the close issues right every time.”

Mitchell said some cases were what he called “cases of first impression,” where a statute hadn’t been interpreted before.

He said he believed he was “extremely hardworking.” He said he spends at least eight hours a week in volunteer time on the Mental Health Drug Court that he started. The court addresses mental health issues and substance abuse issues in offenders that would otherwise be headed to prison. “We’re making productive citizens out of people that used to be a drain on the system,” he said.

Editorial Assistant Sherry Adkins assisted in research for this report.