The Montana Judicial Standards Commission has brought a formal complaint against Judge Deborah Kim Christopher, a sitting judge in the 20th Judicial District, which covers Lake and Sanders counties.
The three-page complaint, filed with the Montana Supreme Court, which will ultimately oversee the case, charges Christopher with unexcused and unexplained absences, more than two dozen since 2021.
Part of the complaint says that Christopher issued a notice when she became ill in April 2022. She said that other judges from around the state would have “jurisdiction over any matters requiring judicial action,” but that she failed to appear to give the Supreme Court adequate notice. It was not able to assign a judge to her caseload until May 12, 2022 – more than a month after she became ill.
The complaint said that she canceled as many as 19 days of “law and motion,” when courts are in session to hear an update on pending cases or adjudicate new cases. They are especially important in the criminal justice system where courts are charged with keeping cases on track so as not to violate a defendant’s right to a speedy trial or due process.
“While some of the cancellations were related to court business, judicial meetings, or holidays, six of the cancellations were for personal reasons that lacked consistent explanation or documentation,” the complaint said of the 2021 absences.
Christopher was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday afternoon.
The complaint also said that Christopher canceled as many as 11 law-and-motion days in 2022, which doesn’t include 14 days that were covered by retired judges during her illness.
“Five of the cancellations were for reasons that lacked consistent explanation and documentation,” the complaint said. “Two additional cancellations were for personal, non-medical reasons and were initiated within days after she returned from an almost three-month medical absence,” it said.
The charging documents said she “failed to attend to regularly scheduled court business, in many cases, for indeterminate reasons,” the complaint said. “Judge Christopher’s conduct warrants disciplinary action.”
It is the second time Christopher’s work has been recently called into question by the state’s highest court.
In October, in what was described as a routine child custody case, Christopher abruptly awarded temporary custody to a father who had seen his child only rarely, barring the mother from contact. Christopher said she wanted to exercise the child’s “stress muscles.”
However, the Montana Supreme Court took control of the case, ordered the child back to the mother, and assigned the case to a different judge.
Christopher was elected to the bench in 2000 after serving as a prosecutor. She was a captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps during Operation Desert Storm.
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