Oklahoma Judge Exchanged 500 Text Messages with bailiff During Murder Trial

[Demovictory9]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/us/oklahoma-judge-texting-murder-trial.html



The state’s top jurist recommended that Traci Soderstrom, a district judge in Lincoln County, be removed from the bench after she and a bailiff mocked lawyers, jurors and witnesses.


An Oklahoma judge who exchanged 500 text messages with her bailiff during a murder trial — mocking the physical appearance of lawyers, jurors and witnesses and deriding prosecutors — should be removed from the bench, the state’s top judge said.

In a court filing on Tuesday, M. John Kane IV, the chief justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, recommended the removal of Traci Soderstrom, who was elected as district judge in Lincoln County in November and took the bench in January.

Judge Soderstrom, 50, was presiding over a murder trial that began on June 7 when she put her personal cellphone in her lap, out of the view of others in the courtroom, and texted continuously back and forth with the bailiff, according to Chief Justice Kane’s petition.

Judge Soderstrom and the bailiff “called murder trial witnesses liars, admired the looks of a police officer who was testifying, disparaged the local defense bar, expressed bias in favor of the defendant and displayed gross partiality against the state,” Chief Justice Kane wrote.