By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — The staff of the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission recommended Friday that Pulaski County Circuit Judge Willard Proctor be removed from the bench for violating judicial conduct rules.
The report, filed by David Stewart, executive director of the commission, and David Sachar, deputy executive director, is to be considered by a three-member panel of the commission that recently heard five days of testimony.
That panel is to make a recommendation to the full-nine member commission, which has until the end of June to complete its report and announce its decision. The state Supreme Court has the final say in the case.
Proctor is accused of violating judicial conduct rules in his relationship with a nonprofit anti-addiction program, which he created.
In the 31-page report issued Friday, Stewart and Sachar recommended that the three-member committee recommend to the state Supreme Court that Proctor be removed from the bench.
The report said some of the offenses may have warranted a lesser sanction if they had been an isolated events.
“However, the seriousness of some of the other offenses as well as the sheer number of violations committed over such a lengthy period of time leave no other alternative” than to recommend he be removed from the office, the report said.
The staff also recommended that Proctor be suspended from the bench while his case is pending if the full commission decides the judge be removed.
In a 69-page response, also filed Friday, Proctor’s attorney Austin Porter Jr. said “this is not a case where Judge Proctor has intentionally violated the judicial cannons.”
He said every time Proctor received a complaint about the program he corrected that area.
“Therefore, in the case at bar sanctions of any kind are inappropriate,” Porter wrote, adding that there is “no evidence that he exploited his position for his own personal desires.”
During the April 27 to May 1 hearing, Proctor denied allegations raised by current or former employees that he threatened or insulted employees, made misleading statements to the Pulaski County Quorum Court, referred to himself as God, and controlled the money that went into the nonprofit Cycle Breakers program.
He did admit that his relationship with some of the probationers in the program may have been too close. He acknowledged giving probationers rides to meetings, hosting them at his home, letting one stay at his home and baptizing some at his church.
