This blog recently featured an Arizona judge who resigned following allegations of urinating in public. See Caught with your Trousers Down (November 2025).
Then there was a judge in a vehicle accident in the parking lot of an adult establishment. Appearances (October 2025).
And there was the judge who was allegedly dating a courthouse worker when both were arrested while the judge allegedly drove away from a bar. A Judge Under Surveillance (June 2025).
Does it seem to be a pattern?
More recently, on November 7, 2025, the "chief judge of (Iowa's) Second Judicial District" was arrested in a scene that might sound to some like a Hollywood script. Headline USA reported that the chief judge is accused of driving "the wrong way on a highway Tuesday night while passed out behind the wheel."
Witnesses said that she "looked unconscious and slumped over the steering wheel." They described struggling to open the vehicle, and one "climb(ed) in the back window to put the 2026 GMC Canyon Denali truck in park and shut it off." That is a maneuver for a stunt person.
The chief judge was treated at the scene, expressed an inability to walk, and did not "undergo field sobriety testing." The incident that began with 911 calls around 8:00 p.m. culminated with being booked into the local "jail around 4 a.m." Those six hours seem somewhat long considering the facts reported.
The judge's attorney stresses that she is committed to "cooperating with law enforcement and the judicial process.” And that is complicated by the recusal of one fellow judge "due to her professional relationship with" the accused judge. It is further complicated by a perceived conflict, leading to the local county attorney asking that the case be reassigned to another county due to potential conflict.
The judge resigned, and in early December 2025, she pleaded guilty to drunk driving, according to weareiowa. She was sentenced to three days in jail, completion of an operating while intoxicated program, one year of probation, and a $1,250 fine. The penalty may not be what others would suffer. Law info says the first-time offender can face a one-year license revocation for OWI and a similar suspension for not participating in OWI testing, as reported in this instance.
More recently still, Action News 5 reported on a Desoto County, Mississippi, judge who was arrested, accused of driving under the influence (DUI). She has reportedly returned to the bench and will hear allegations and charges against others accused of inebriated driving. When the news interviewed the public at that judge's courthouse, one noted:
“Seeing these people in higher positions, you expect them to be law-abiding citizens or uphold the law very well, so, just very surprising to see something like that.”
That criticism is perhaps the most compelling. Another news station, WDAM 7, provided police body-camera footage (at 17:50, an hour after work) of the traffic stop and the aftermath of testing and conversation. The judge was named and exhibited, but they were kind enough to blur the license number on the vehicle she was allegedly driving. She was scheduled for further proceedings in April 2026.
Nonetheless, WLOX reported in March that she "offered to plead guilty," will serve six months' probation, and her plea will be "held in abeyance." Upon the completion of the six months, "the charge of DUI will be dismissed and expunged from her record."
There are easy lessons in these occurrences. The first is simply not to drink and drive. We live in a modern world full of taxis and ride-shares. There is no challenge with availability for the vast majority.
The second lesson for judges is likely the importance of self-reporting when arrested. Codes across the country are supportive of such actions and even require it in various instances. That is a matter of trust. Some would argue that a judge arrested for DUI presiding over the DUI cases of others presents a similar, if not more compelling, issue of public trust.
But there is also the chance that these various events portend more. There is the potential for degradation of public perceptions of the judiciary generally and of the judicial system.
Of these two most recent examples, one judge drove the wrong way and luckily lived. She lost a good job but went to jail for days, followed by probation and a small fine.
The other returned to the bench the wrong way and is impacting a community. Is hers a sweet deal reserved for judges and other local luminaries, or is it the same treatment that would be afforded to some guy in a pickup?
There will be readers who will believe that these people got special treatment. The credibility of the judicial system and those who prosecute in it will be questioned. And, if the rash of these stories is any indication, the next example will be just around the corner, waiting to make the news.
From one perspective of a common denominator in all these stories, it may appear the best place for judges to get into such trouble is Mississippi. That is the judge who kept her job and whose record will be clean in a few months if she behaves well.
