St. Louis judge suspended after she turns cases over to her clerk

St. Louis judge suspended after she turns cases over to her clerk

September 01, 2012 10:00 am • BY ROBERT PATRICK • rpatrick@post-dispatch.com > 314-621-5154

ST. LOUIS • A St. Louis judge was suspended Friday after a state judicial commission took the unusual step of recommending her removal from the bench.



The Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline’s report says Associate Circuit Judge Barbara Peebles abdicated her judicial responsibilities to her clerks, frequently showed up late and removed and destroyed a court document, then tried to cover it up by telling her clerk that the pair should “take (the incident) to our graves.”



The report also says that during a criminal investigation into Peebles’ conduct, prosecutors taped a phone call with her, and that the prosecutor found her explanation of the missing document not credible.



The criminal investigation and the commission’s 25-page report, filed with the court Thursday, were prompted by a Dec. 18 article in the Post-Dispatch that revealed that a clerk for Peebles handled at least 350 cases while Peebles was on vacation in China.



The clerks postponed and dismissed cases, refused to dismiss at least one and decided that as many as 18 arrest warrants should be issued. The warrants, however, didn’t become active until Peebles returned and signed them.



One lawyer called the practice “illegal as hell.”



The newspaper also revealed that a lawyer’s memo complaining about the practice had disappeared from a court file.



The commission’s investigation also included other allegations. Peebles was found not guilty on four counts against her, but found guilty on five.



Her lawyer, Paul D’Agrosa, said that she would appeal and would ask for oral argument in front of the Missouri Supreme Court. That is at least two months away, he said.



Until then, Peebles, 52, will be suspended with pay. She earns $109,366.



“While we respect the commission’s findings, we don’t agree,” D’Agrosa said. “We do not nor have we ever believed that any of the conduct warrants removal. And we still don’t believe there was misconduct other than that she’s already admitted to . . . publicly commenting on a pending case.”



That charge stemmed from comments she made to a Post-Dispatch reporter in a 2011 story about residents upset over the bond Peebles set in a case.



Peebles told the commission that she did not believe that her practices in Division 25, which handles the initial stages of criminal cases, were any different than other judges.



She also said that Tyler was never making decisions about court cases, and denied telling her to cover up the removal of the document.



Five members of the commission recommended Peebles removal. The sixth recommended a six-month suspension.



The last time a judge was removed from office was 1993, when a Platte County judge was deemed no longer capable of performing his duties, the commission said.



In recent years, roughly 200 or more complaints have been filed against judges each year. Most are dismissed without investigation after being deemed to have no merit.



Commission statistics show that only four formal disciplinary hearings and two disability hearings have been held since July 1998. One complaint was dismissed after the hearing. Three judges were sanctioned with a suspension without pay or formal reprimand. Two judges retired on disability. No judges have been removed.



‘JUDGE WHITNEY’ IN CHARGE



The most serious charges against Peebles involve the role assumed by one of her clerks, Whitney Tyler. Tyler was also Peebles’ friend and hair stylist, the commission report says.



The commission found that Peebles regularly allowed Tyler to handle the first “docket call” of the day, when Tyler would announce which cases would be dismissed or continued, or that arrest warrants would be issued.



Tyler, who became known as “Judge Whitney” among lawyers because of her actions, was making the decisions, one lawyer told the commission.



“Until the judge got there, she was the judge,” lawyer David Stokely said.



“On frequent occasions,” Peebles was not even in the building when Tyler was handling the cases, although she authorized Tyler’s actions, the commission said.



Long delays that kept lawyers, witnesses, police, defendants and their relatives waiting became a joke among lawyers, one public defender told the commission.



The practice became most problematic when Peebles took a two-week vacation to China in October.



Tyler continued her usual practices, announcing that cases had been continued, dismissed or that an arrest warrant would be issued. On several occasions, she used Peebles’ signature stamp to dismiss cases.



The commission report says that when Peebles returned and saw a public defender named Chad Oliver had filed a memo complaining about the practice, she became “furious,” and tore it out of the file. She then crumpled it up, threw it away and said, “Get this (expletive) out of my file,” according to the report.



Later ,when Peebles was getting her hair styled at the cosmetology school where Tyler also worked, Tyler told her that the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office was investigating the disappearance of a court document.



“This is something we’re going to keep between us, it’s something we’re going to take to our graves,” Peebles told her clerk at the shampoo bowl, according to the report.



Peebles later advised Tyler against taking a polygraph test and suggested she get a lawyer.



When Peebles called Assistant Circuit Attorney Rachel Smith, she admitted removing the document but claimed that she removed it because it was labeled an “order” or dismissal, had not been signed by a judge and was improperly filed. Smith taped the call. Both Smith and the commission said Peebles was not truthful or credible, the report says.



Speaking in general terms about the law prohibiting tampering with a public record, Smith told the Post-Dispatch earlier this year that the law requires the person to know that they don’t have the authority to alter or destroy the document. That makes prosecution difficult.



“It’s a unique statute in that the state has to prove a very specific mental element,” she said at the time. “We have to show that it was knowing and that the person lacked the power or authority to do so.”



Peebles attended Washington University in St. Louis and earned her law degree in 1986 from American University in Washington, D.C. She worked as a law intern at the Internal Revenue Service, an assistant city counselor, an assistant circuit attorney and a drug court commissioner, all in St. Louis, before she was appointed an associate circuit judge in 2000 by then-Gov. Mel Carnahan.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/judge-suspended-after-she-turns-cases-over-to-her-hairdresser/article_eb963044-f382-11e1-afec-001a4bcf6878.html