Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Here comes da Judge


What, it's noon already?

I've heard the stories about Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge Ann Lokuta sometimes eccentric behavior. If you read the complaint of the state’s Judicial Conduct Board it reads like a script of a bad comedy. Accusing her of not bathing, wearing soiled clothes and yelling at people is petty. The hints about her sexuality interfering with her duties have come up before. A former female clerk had filed sexual harrassment charges in 1999 that weren't proven. When she was up for retention in 2001 the word went out to vote no and she only got 57% of the vote in her favor. The other Judges on the ballot that year received 70%+.

The TL article has the highlights of some of the more outrageous accusations and the CV has some follow-up. The most serious allegation is that she used a court employee as her personal slave:

From 1999 to 2001, Lokuta “misused” worker Judith Flaherty by having her run personal errands on county time, the charges say. Flaherty allegedly had to clean Lokuta’s bathroom, kitchen, hallway, living room, scrub her floor by hand, take her car to the car wash, and do yard work at Lokuta’s home, among other chores. Flaherty was at Lokuta’s home performing the tasks for weeks and months at a time.

But the other shoe will drop in this if it goes to a hearing and it will be fun to hear her side of the story. This charge caught my attention:

Lokuta has also allegedly directed her staff to not interact with other court personnel or judges and continually gives negative commentary from the bench about President Judge Michael Conahan.

A Big Fat Slob has dealt with our local legal system and has concluded we need merit selection of Judges. I agree.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It just goes to prove what I've said all along; a woman's place is in the kitchen!! I'm angrier than Mark Foley in a hot tub full of Playboy bunnies over the fact that Miss Lukuta has prissied the sanctity of the Judge's chambers with her female hissy fits and sleep til noon laziness! She shouldn't have wasted her youth going to Law School--she should have been looking for a good man--to straighten her out and keep her on the right track!! If she had a man she would be up at 5am greasing up the trusty griddle to cook a manly breakfast of ham and eggs and maybe some home fries on the side for her man--a meal worth its weight in salt--{shut up you prissy commie doctors!}. Instead, she goes the feminicommie route and defies her country and her God. Again--if she and all the other so called "professional" women out there knew their place, this world would be a lot better of a place. In my day we had professional women too--but they were on the backstreets and contributed to society by calming a hard working man down (if you know what I mean). Now the damned femicommies want both worlds--kids and jobs--and they want to perform the immoral act of breast feeding in public!!! Look it up, its true. I've about had enough of all of this balderdash!!! Damn!!! Where's the morality? In this Holiday season when we cannot even mention the birth of the Saviour for who it was named--a man who stood for love and compassion for all--well-- I guess I'll get all your Commie goats with this---Merry Christmas and I hate you all!!!! P.S. Don't tell my wife Thelma Jean what about this posting--she's baking pies today with her super sized roller.

PA progressive said...

Heck, that's nothing. Here in Berks County we have a GOP Commissioner (Mark Scott) who has been carrying on a sexual relationship with his female assistant for two years. They disappear together for many a weekday afternoon while she's supposed to be working for the taxpayers. I'd like to see her real job description and see what "services" she's providing while they're out on their trysts.

David Yonki said...

Why don't they investigate county judges who have bench trials and provide fat settlements to their lawyer buddies????
Yonkstur

Bernie O'Hare said...

Gort, Unfortunately, the jurist you describe is becoming all too common. But appointment just takes the politics out of the hands of the people. Let these bastards face th voters.

Gort said...

David, I liked your post and agree the old boy network has had it out for her for a long time. Plus I love any Marty Murray story.

Bernie, She has faced the voters twice. Elected in 1991 and retained in 2001. Judicial elections are a joke. The candidates can't take positions and it turns on name ID and who has the most money. Only 2 Judges in my memory were not retained.

Anonymous said...

The problem when it comes to voting for Judges is that, unlike when voting for "politicians", voters feel a sense of intellectual inferiority to judicial candidates. They are many times held in higher esteem as compared to the candidate for dog catcher. In the end we come up with Judges who are all too human and flawed for the simple reason that we are not able to measure their qualifications with a degree of intelligence.

J. said...

Whoa now mean old man! Since when did breastfeeding in public become immoral?