Supports Estelle

To the editor:

This is a letter to speak up on behalf of Judge Estelle because I am concerned about the misleading statements the Judicial Council has made about him.

What the Council never mentions, and what I think is especially relevant, is that when Judge Estelle discovered he had missed a deadline on a case, he self-reported that to the Judicial Conduct Commission (a different body than the Council). Being an honest man, he didn’t lie about it but accepted responsibility for his oversight. He also discovered a second late case where he had signed 12 pay affidavits without realizing the case was overdue and reported that case to the commission, even though that particular late decision had never shown up on the court lists as being due or overdue. Judge Estelle handles approximately 6,000 cases a year, so overlooking one case that wasn’t even on the court’s list is not surprising.

After receiving Judge Estelle’s self-report, the Judicial Conduct Commission reviewed five years of Judge Estelle’s work — approximately 30,000 cases. These two self-reported cases were the only two cases that were overdue and had inaccurate pay affidavits associated with them. After Judge Estelle self-reported these cases, he took personal leave and spent his own money to attend a seminar on effective case-flow management and revamped his office practices to prevent this from happening again.

I don’t feel that having two late cases out of over 60,000 cases in eleven years is a good reason to throw a seasoned judge off the bench.

The statements in the press which say Judge Estelle filed “false affidavits” makes it sound like he knowingly and intentionally bypassed the rules rather than it being an inaccurate statement.

Indeed, the Judicial Conduct Commission after a year-long investigation and a two-day hearing concluded that Judge Estelle “had no dishonest or selfish motive”, had “an excellent character and excellent reputation” and “a precise and thorough legal mind”. The commission also found that the affidavits associated with these two overdue cases, while inaccurate, were signed inadvertently because Judge Estelle had been unaware that these two cases were overdue.

I hope the Alaskan voters will see fit to retain this fine judge, a third-generation Alaskan, who truly cares about his community and the people he serves.

Brenda Hewitt Fuller

Juneau