LITTLE WAS REMOVED TWICE FROM BENCH -- HE WAS REINSTATED TO JUVENILE COURT IN '82 WITH PANEL'S APPROVAL, JUDGE SAYS
[THIRD Edition]
Seattle Times
Seattle, Wash.
Sep 8, 1988

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Authors:                  PETER LEWIS, ERIC NALDER
Pagination:               A1
ISSN:                     07459696
Abstract:

Gary Little was removed not once, but twice from the Juvenile Court bench
for having contact with youngsters outside his King County Superior courtroom.
After the first removal, he was reinstated with the approval of a state
commission that investigated him, according to a former presiding judge
of Superior Court.

Little, who committed suicide last month after learning that allegations
that he sexually abused young men and boys before he became a judge were
about to be published, was temporarily removed from the Juvenile Court
bench in 1981 by then-presiding Superior Court Judge Jack Scholfield.

Scholfield's comments yesterday are the first public indication that the
court took action in Little's case as early as 1981 and that the state
Commission on Judicial Conduct - which at the time was investigating allegations
against Little - had a role in restoring him to the Juvenile Court bench.
Copyright Seattle Times Sep 8, 1988

Full Text:

Gary Little was removed not once, but twice from the Juvenile Court bench
for having contact with youngsters outside his King County Superior courtroom.
After the first removal, he was reinstated with the approval of a state
commission that investigated him, according to a former presiding judge
of Superior Court.

Little, who committed suicide last month after learning that allegations
that he sexually abused young men and boys before he became a judge were
about to be published, was temporarily removed from the Juvenile Court
bench in 1981 by then-presiding Superior Court Judge Jack Scholfield.

Scholfield, who has since moved to the state Court of Appeals, said yesterday
he restored Little to his Juvenile Court duties in about February 1982
after getting authorization from the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Scholfield's comments yesterday are the first public indication that the
court took action in Little's case as early as 1981 and that the state
Commission on Judicial Conduct - which at the time was investigating allegations
against Little - had a role in restoring him to the Juvenile Court bench.

In 1985 - four years after Scholfield temporarily banned Little from the
court - another presiding judge, Norman Quinn, permanently removed Little
from the juvenile bench, again for having outside contacts with juveniles
who appeared before him.

The commission had secretly admonished Little in March 1982 for three improper
out-of-court contacts, but the action was not made public until 1985 when
Little told a Seattle Times reporter about it. The commission did not publicly
acknowledge its private action until this summer.

The judge took one boy for a week's visit to his island cabin, told another
he would pay for his college education, and had private meetings with another
in his chambers.

Scholfield said the commission's executive director, Esther Garner, told
him that the Little case had been handled, but not that Little was going
to be admonished.

Investigators for the King County prosecutor's office, which had filed
a complaint with the commission in October 1981, found no evidence that
Little had sexual contact with the boys.

But one man says he told the commission the year it was investigating the
judge's out-of-court contacts that Little had tried to get sexual favors
from him when the man was a teen-ager in the early 1970s, when Little was
a volunteer teacher at Seattle's Lakeside School, but before he became
a judge.

The commission could have recommended that Little be removed as a judge
as a result of the out-of-court contacts with juvenile offenders, and some
critics now say it should have done so. Instead, it chose the milder form
of discipline in exchange for Little's promise to have no further out-of-court
contacts with youths who had appeared before him in court.

In 1984 and 1985, Juvenile Court officials, the prosecutor's office and
the state attorney general's office received information that Little was
once again visiting young male offenders outside the courtroom, despite
his promise not to do so. Little was then permanently removed from the
juvenile bench in 1985.

Scholfield said someone in Juvenile Court - he cannot recall who - first
made him aware that there were concerns regarding Little's contacts with
juvenile offenders.

"I clearly recall calling Judge Little in and telling him that I was going
to suspend him from sitting in Juvenile Court for a while until the Judicial
Qualifications Commission (now known as the Commission on Judicial Conduct)
had had an opportunity to pass on the thing and to complete their work
on it,'' Scholfield said.

In about February 1982, Scholfield recalled, "I was called by Esther Garner
and told their work had been completed and Judge Little could be restored
to full duty, and I notified him, and he went back to juvenile (court)
and that was the end of my participation.''

Scholfield said he did not ask Garner what she meant when she told him
the Little matter had been resolved.

"I figured she was telling me probably all that she felt I had to know.
. . . She seemed to know that he had been suspended during the interim
by me,'' he said.

He said it was not until much later that he learned the commission had
admonished Little.

Garner, contacted yesterday at a conference in California, said she did
not recall talking with Scholfield, but did not have access there to files
on the case.

Even if she did recall a conversation with the judge, Garner said, she
could not comment on anything in the case that happened confidentially.

Seattle attorney F. Lee Campbell, who chaired the commission in 1981 and
1982, said yesterday that he knew Scholfield had removed Little from the
bench, but could not recall if the commission told Garner to telephone
Scholfield.

But another former commission member, Ann Sandstrom, said Garner "was
our agent in communicating our decisions.'' Citing confidentiality laws
by which she still feels bound, she declined comment on any aspects of
the Little case.

Quinn, the judge who removed Little from the juvenile bench in 1985, said
he was unaware until very recently that Scholfield had suspended Little
in 1981. Quinn said he found out only when he happened to run into Scholfield
about two months ago.

Scholfield declined comment on the commission's policy of disregarding
allegations of misconduct that occurred before people became judges, or
before the commission was created in 1980.

The commission has come under fire for its handling of the Little case.

Two key state lawmakers have called for the commission to turn over its
files on Little in time for a legislative hearing Sept. 23.

The commission has turned down that request, citing confidentiality rules.

Members have decided to hire their own attorney to review the commission's
handling of the Little case, and to file a report that would be given to
lawmakers in time for the hearing.

Some lawmakers are considering subpoenaing the commission's records.