Court: Judge broke residency rules

BOISE – The Idaho Supreme Court said Thursday 2nd District Judge John Bradbury was violating the residency requirement for his seat on the bench and must make his primary home in Idaho County within three weeks.

Justice Jim Jones scolded Bradbury for trying to justify having his primary residency in Nez Perce County by saying that living full-time in Idaho County would prohibit him from carrying out his constitutional duties.

“Nothing in our constitutional system allows an individual district judge to determine, on his own, what his duties are and how they will be performed,” Jones wrote for the majority. “No judge is above the law.”

Bradbury said he was disappointed because the judges didn’t detail how much time he must spend in Idaho County, and only said his current living arrangements didn’t meet the residency requirements.

“My issue is that actual residence still isn’t better defined, so I still don’t know what’s required of me,” Bradbury said.

The high court stopped short of suspending Bradbury or finding that he violated the code of judicial conduct, as the Idaho Judicial Council had requested.

But the justices said they would revisit the issue if Bradbury didn’t make his primary home in Idaho County and submit an affidavit stating he would reside there as long as the law requires him to do so.

Bradbury has two homes. One is in the Idaho County city of Grangeville, where his official judicial chambers are located. The other is in nearby Lewiston in Nez Perce County.

Bradbury has argued that because his job requires him to travel to several courthouses in the region, Lewiston affords him a shorter commute, saving time and money and allowing him to get more court work done.

He has said the location also provides for safer travel in the winter, when wind blowing across the Idaho County prairie can turn a snowstorm into a whiteout.