TRENT GARNER: His pursuit of Wendell Griffen continues.

Sen. Trent Garner, a putative lawyer, won’t rest until he can get Judge Wendell Griffen impeached for expressing his religious beliefs in public.

So today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will take up Garner’s request for a study to develop impeachment procedures for the Senate. The Bureau of Legislative Research has examined the history and notes the process has been little used, mostly in the 19th century, to remove officials for “high crimes and misdemeanors” or “gross misconduct” in office.

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A rational observer would conclude it was neither a high crime or gross misconduct in office for Griffen to demonstrate against the death penalty on a day he’d decided a property rights case that had the effect of preventing the state from using a drug for executions that it had obtained under dubious circumstances. A subsequent judge considered the same facts and made an identical ruling. Was it a good idea for Griffen, a Baptist pastor, to join his congregants in a demonstration on Good Friday or to represent the crucified Jesus in a manner that appeared much like an inmate strapped to a gurney awaiting death? Probably not, though well within his First Amendment rights. It’s only the 2nd that moves Garner much. And nobody in the legislature has held a hearing on the means by which the state acquired its killing drug.

In any case, the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission is the proper place to consider actions by judges that might cause the public to question their fairness. And it is doing so, with a recommendation pending that Griffen be cited for an ethical violation. The Commission could remove him from office, but that’s an action it has reserved for far more serious misdeeds than punishing a Baptist preacher demonstrating that the Bible means what it says — thou shalt not kill. 

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David Sachar, director of the commission, also will speak.

Based on past pronouncements, anything less than a legal lynching of Griffen will be unacceptable to Garner.

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UPDATE: Unhappiness voiced at the meeting, too, about Pulaski Circuit Judge Patti James’ negative comments about awarding custody of children to family members when parents aren’t suitable. Sen. Linda Collins-Smith wanted to subpoena James and blamed Senate President Jonathan Dismang for the failure to get that testimony.

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