# Hunters Target Judge



## bownutty (Feb 8, 2004)

That is something! Arresting a fella who is not involved in the case to be arrested for walking out of the court room. She has to go for that states sake!


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## Darton01 (Aug 25, 2006)

Pms


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## Jerry/NJ (Jan 17, 2003)

*Judge who berated hunters loses seat in Utah
*

ASSOCIATED PRESS 

9:51 a.m. November 8, 2006 

SALT LAKE CITY – Voters removed a Utah district judge who reduced the sentence of a sex offender and also caught the wrath of deer hunters and gun owners for an anti-hunting diatribe from the bench. 
In Salt Lake, Tooele and Summit counties, 54 percent of voters Tuesday said Judge Leslie Lewis should not be retained, a rare defeat for a sitting jurist.

Lewis, a judge since 1991, was out of town and unavailable for comment, court spokeswoman Nancy Volmer said Wednesday.

A week before the election, an attorney said Lewis had reduced the sentence of his client, a sex offender, to 20 years from 30 years and repeatedly discouraged him from telling prosecutors. Salt Lake County prosecutors filed a complaint with the Judicial Conduct Commission, and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff asked an appeals court to reverse her decision.

But Lewis already had alienated many Utah hunters with her tirade against the sport during a hearing involving a poacher. During the hearing, Lewis said she was recusing herself from the case because of prejudice against hunters.

“I have a prejudice concerning deer hunters and people who kill deer and transport deer that have been shot,” she said from the bench in a video posted on the Internet.

“Have you ever actually looked at a deer when they're alive?” Lewis asked Michael Jacobson, the defendant. When Jacobson acknowledged he had seen live deer, the judge said, according to a transcript: “And it doesn't bother you that you can see its heart beating? ... Were you starving? Did you need the meat?”

After the case was given to another judge, Jacobson was ordered to pay $2,500 and give up his hunting rights for two years.


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