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HenchPAC NewsLITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A newly elected judge who was appointed to a state office by then-Gov. Bill Clinton said Tuesday he won't consider withdrawing from presiding over the Clinton disbarment case unless he's asked.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Willard Proctor Jr., who inherited the state's petition to strip President Clinton of his law license, took office Monday.
He replaces a temporary judge, Leon Johnson, who for months resisted a state committee's demand that he hear the Clinton disbarment case before the end of last year.
Johnson decided to handle the case after four veteran judges withdrew, each citing the appearance of conflicts because of ties to Clinton, Arkansas' governor for 12 years before winning the presidency.
In 1992, Clinton appointed Proctor to a five-year term on the state Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training.
Lawyer Marie-B. Miller, who is acting as prosecutor in the Clinton case for the state Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct, complained about the delay in hearing the case in a September letter to Johnson and noted that Proctor would have a conflict if elected.
``If they file motions requesting that I recuse, then I will consider those motions,'' Proctor said. ``Somebody is going to have to ask me.''
Miller did not immediately return a call to her office seeking comment Tuesday.
The professional conduct committee sued to have Clinton stripped of his license to practice law in his home state, alleging he was unfit to practice law because of misleading statements about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky in a 1998 deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case.
Clinton has said disbarment would be too harsh a punishment.
Johnson was appointed to the Pulaski County bench in June to serve out the term of a judge who had been removed from office.
Newly seated Pulaski County Circuit Judge Willard Proctor Jr. said Tuesday he has no plans to recuse himself from President Clinton's disbarment case, though one lawyer in the case has already said she believes Proctor has a conflict of interest.
"I would assume I would handle all the cases in this division, unless someone asked me to recuse," said Proctor, who inherited the case when he took the oath of office Monday. "At that point I will consider whatever motions are made." Proctor said he didn't feel it was appropriate to recuse from the case "unless and until somebody asks me to."
Proctor spent his first day on the bench Tuesday in Pulaski County's 5th Division Court. The disbarment case landed in that division, then held by appointee Circuit Judge Leon Johnson, after four other Pulaski County judges disqualified themselves. Johnson was appointed to fill ousted 5th Division Circuit Judge Morris Thompson's term in June. His appointment ended Dec. 31.
Proctor beat Thompson in the May 23 Democratic primary and ran unopposed in the Nov. 7 election. He took the oath of office Monday.
In an Aug. 31 letter to Johnson, Marie-Bernarde Miller, an attorney for the Arkansas Supreme Court's Committee on Professional Conduct, said she believed that Proctor would have a conflict of interest in the case. She warned that if Johnson did not choose to hear the case by the end of his term "the judicial system will be mired in the process of selecting another judge to try the case."
No new motions had been filed in the Clinton case Tuesday, and Miller would not say whether she planned to ask Proctor to disqualify himself.
"I would prefer not to talk about any plans we may or may not have related to the case," she said.
In 1992, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton appointed Proctor to the state's Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training.
Canon 3E of the Canons of Judicial Ethics lists some possible reasons for a judge disqualifying himself from a case. One of those is if "the judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party or a party's lawyer, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding."
Proctor said Tuesday that Clinton's part in the 1992 appointment was minimal.
"A local attorney asked me to fill his spot," Proctor said. "[The attorney] recommended me to -- I assume -- the executive director of the committee that I served on."
The appointment by the governor was just a matter of paperwork, he said.
"I didn't know him. He didn't know me," Proctor said of Clinton. "If he saw me on the street, he wouldn't know me from Adam."
Stephen Engstrom, local counsel for Clinton's legal team, wouldn't say Tuesday whether he believed the 1992 appointment constituted a conflict for Proctor. Engstrom also wouldn't comment on whether he would file a motion asking the judge to step aside.
"I have always made it a policy not to discuss what actions I may take in a case with the press," he said.
The Arkansas Supreme Court's Committee on Professional Conduct filed a lawsuit asking for Clinton's disbarment June 30. That filing says that Clinton's conduct during a 1998 deposition in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment case constituted "serious misconduct." The committee also claims Clinton violated Arkansas attorney conduct rules that prohibit lawyers from engaging in "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation" and "conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice."
In court filings, Clinton has denied he violated the rules and said that disbarment is too harsh a penalty.
If Proctor were to recuse himself from the Clinton case, the case would be assigned randomly to one of the two remaining circuit judges -- Judge Marion Humphrey or Judge John Langston. Both of those judges currently handle only criminal cases. If all of the Pulaski County circuit judges were to recuse from the civil case, the chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court would appoint a special circuit judge to consider the lawsuit seeking Clinton's disbarment.
No hearing date has been set for the case.
HENCH adds: Don't hold your breath folks, the wheels of justice in Arkansas grind so slow as to seemingly INCREASE the size of the grain.
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