ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 7, 1997 TAG: 9701070109
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on Januray 8, 1997.
The name of Mary Geisen, a research associate with the state Division
of Legislative Services, was misspelled in a story Tuesday about the
reappointment of Bedford Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Philip
Wallace.
THE REAPPOINTMENT of Bedford Judge Philip Wallace is being challenged by a critic of 'the system.'
Bedford Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Philip Wallace may be the only judge in the state facing public opposition to being reappointed this year.
At the request of Jack Mills, the executive director of a nonprofit shelter program for battered women in Bedford County, the state Senate Courts of Justice Committee will hold a public hearing Wednesday on Wallace's reappointment to a second six-year term.
"Today, as we speak, the only incumbent judge who is facing this kind of public hearing is Judge Wallace," Mary Giesen, a research associate with the state Division of Legislative Services, said Monday. Fifty-two other incumbent judges are seeking reappointment.
Mills and six others are scheduled to speak in opposition to Wallace, who has been a frequent target of "The Mills Turn," a quasi-newsletter that Mills uses to criticize "The System" - a variety of government officials including social services workers, judges and prosecutors in Bedford and Bedford County.
Mills has included detailed information and names from confidential juvenile court hearings in his newsletters, which are sent to reporters, elected state officials and some county residents.
He claims Wallace has made many poor decisions that have hurt children and parents, including allowing visitation rights to accused child molesters.
Mills' tactics have so outraged many leaders in the Bedford community that several - including the sheriff and the mayor - have organized a letter-writing campaign to their local legislators and all the members of the Senate committee on the judge's behalf.
As many as 30 plan to show up and speak in support of Wallace at the hearing in Richmond.
"Philip A. Wallace has been an excellent judge and should not be destroyed, impugned, or publicly embarrassed by someone who tends to take advantage of people during some of their weakest emotional moments," Bedford Mayor Mike Shelton said in a letter to the Senate committee.
Shelton added, "The Philip Wallace that Jack Mills describes in his writings is not the same Philip Wallace who has so ably served Bedford over the years. What you are witnessing, I believe, is an individual with a vendetta which he attempts to picture as a noble cause.
``I do not quarrel with Mr. Mills' general goals of assisting abused and battered women and children; however, the methods to achieve his ends are extreme and dangerous, not just to the judge and the court, but also to the individuals he purports to be serving.''
``This is Jack Mills against the world,'' said Bedford attorney R. Louis Harrison Jr., a past president of the Bedford Bar Association. ``Jack makes a profession of going around fighting government. If you read his letters, he's an anarchist. He wants no government, and he's made a practice of going against Judge Wallace.
``The reason he's picked on Judge Wallace and the J&D court is that the court's powerless against him. Everything's confidential, so he's publishing his newsletters with half-truths and blatant lies, and no one in the court system is free to respond because they would be breaching the confidentiality of the children.''
Others who have written in support of Wallace include Bedford Vice Mayor Larry Brookshier and Sheriff Mike Brown, who was once a Mills supporter, and whose wife was on the board of directors for Mills' shelter.
Wallace declined to be interviewed for this story.
Mills said he is performing a public service and he is determined to get Wallace off the bench.
``My father passed away this past weekend, and I'm not going to the funeral. I'm staying here, trying to get Wallace fired,'' Mills said. ``That's how important this is to me.''
Mills claims Wallace gave unsupervised visitation rights to a parent despite the testimony of counselors and a clinical psychiatrist that they believed the parent had sexually abused the child. Mills also claims Wallace denied the other parent in the case an opportunity to appeal the ruling to a higher court for several years.
Other allegations include that Wallace has exceeded state guidelines when handing down sentences for contempt of court, and that he unjustly dropped charges against a man accused of sexually assaulting his wife.
Mills, however, has had run-ins with Wallace in court, sometimes with his shelter group, Honor Quest. Once he was brought before the court on assault charges accusing him of restraining a youth whom Mills said was trying to harm his own mother. Wallace placed the charge under advisement. Mills called Wallace's demeanor on the bench ``arrogant and rude.''
``Thomas Jefferson taught that when the people fear the government, it's called tyranny. When the government is afraid of the people, it's called freedom,'' Mills said. "One of the things that drives me is the fear people have of government in Bedford, specifically Wallace and Social Services, and I want to put a stop to that.
``I don't have a bone to pick with Wallace specifically. I have a bone to pick with the system."
LENGTH: Long : 101 linesby CNB