THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 20, 1996 TAG: 9607200210
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 126 lines
Judge Luther C. Edmonds has taken a two-month leave of absence from Circuit Court to defend himself against charges of impropriety, sources in the legal community say.
Edmonds started his leave Monday to deal with ``personal matters,'' Clerk of Court Albert Teich Jr. said. He would not elaborate, nor would Chief Judge Lydia C. Taylor.
But the sources say Edmonds is being investigated by the state's judicial review board for alleged misdeeds in dealing with a bail bondsman.
The Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission, which investigates complaints against judges, originally set a hearing on Edmonds for this month. It has been rescheduled for September.
Edmonds, 53, has been a judge since 1988. He could not be reached for comment. He did not return calls to his home Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. His two attorneys also did not return calls made on those days.
While Edmonds is on leave, retired judges are handling his cases.
The complaint against Edmonds is not available to the public or the news media. The work of the judicial commission is confidential. Even the existence of a complaint cannot be confirmed or denied. It is a misdemeanor for anyone involved with acomplaint to talk about it.
But sources in the legal community who are familiar with the case say the complaint against Edmonds centers on his involvement with bail bondsman Sherry D. Battle.
Battle, a former model, became a bail bondsman in 1992. Her bonding license was suspended in 1994 because she did not have enough collateral to back up her bonds.
Battle is now suing six Circuit Court judges, four retired judges, the clerk, the former clerk and the chief deputy clerk over her suspension. Battle, who is black, alleges racial discrimination and seeks $30 million.
That lawsuit, which is pending in federal court in Norfolk, and Edmonds' dealings with Battle in court are at the heart of the complaint against him, sources say.
One question is whether Edmonds gave Battle confidential information from the court that she used in her lawsuit against the other judges.
Edmonds is not a party to Battle's lawsuit because he was not a Circuit Court judge when Battle's bonding license was suspended in 1994. Edmonds was a General District Court judge at the time. He was promoted to Circuit Court in 1995.
To support her discrimination case, Battle and her attorney, Sa'ad El-Amin of Richmond, have filed in federal court two confidential letters that Edmonds wrote in April - one to his fellow Circuit Court judges, the other to the Virginia Supreme Court. Both discuss possible violations by other bail bondsmen. Both imply possible racial discrimination in applying court rules to bondsmen.
It is not known how Battle or El-Amin came into possession of these letters. They were not public documents at the time that Battle and El-Amin apparently got them. Neither Battle nor El-Amin could be reached for comment. They did not return repeated calls to their offices Thursday and Friday.
Edmonds wrote the first letter to his Circuit Court colleagues April 3. In it, he said he had reviewed 25 bondsmen's files and found widespread violations. He complained that rules were not being enforced uniformly, and noted that all four bondsmen who had been suspended were black.
Three weeks later, on April 26, Edmonds wrote another letter on the same subject, this one to the state Supreme Court. In it, he asked for an independent review of Norfolk's bondsmen. He again charged that many bondsmen were violating laws or rules, and again noted that all four suspended bondsmen were black.
In that letter, Edmonds wrote that an emergency meeting of the Circuit Court judges was held April 12 at his request to discuss the bondsmen issue. He said he told the other judges: ``I would not be involved in any cover-up of violations of the law (by bondsmen) and urged them to act now.''
At least one judge apparently reacted angrily to Edmonds' suggestion. Edmonds wrote that one unnamed judge attacked his ``character and integrity,'' and that Edmonds left the meeting immediately afterward.
The Supreme Court declined Edmonds' request for a review of bail bondsmen, saying the subject is not within its jurisdiction.
A later review of Norfolk's bondsmen by another judge, Charles E. Poston, found fewer violations than Edmonds did. Poston also found eight suspended bondsmen, six of whom are black, two white.
Ten days after Edmonds wrote to the Supreme Court, on May 6, Battle and El-Amin filed their federal lawsuit against the judges and clerks. The 23-page lawsuit contains many details from other bondsmen's court files. It is not known where those details came from, or if they came from Edmonds' review of the files.
At the time, Edmonds' two letters on the subject were confidential.
The April 26 letter to the Supreme Court became public in late June when someone anonymously sent a copy to The Virginian-Pilot. A copy also was sent to a Republican Party official in Norfolk.
The April 3 letter became public soon after, when The Virginian-Pilot obtained a copy from the Circuit Court. The court released that letter in response to questions about Edmonds' other letter.
None of the judges or clerks in Circuit Court will discuss Battle, Edmonds or Edmonds' letters.
Another issue is Edmonds' dealings with Battle in court.
On March 5, Chief Judge Taylor signed an order declaring that all nine Circuit Court judges could not hear cases involving Battle, apparently because she had previously sued the court in 1993 and 1994. Taylor asked the Supreme Court to appoint an outside judge to hear Battle's cases.
On April 3, the Norfolk judges met and again agreed that they should follow a recommendation by the state attorney general's office and remove themselves from all cases involving Battle. Edmonds, however, did not agree, according to minutes of the meeting.
As a result, on May 10, Edmonds heard three cases involving Battle. Each was an appeal by Battle of judgments against her stemming from forfeited bail bonds in 1993 and 1994.
Edmonds overturned all the judgments, totaling $11,909.
In two of those cases, Battle's requests were previously denied by judges in the lower General District Court.
In the past, Edmonds also has heard several other cases involving Battle, according to court records.
The judicial commission hearing against Edmonds in September will be closed to the public and the news media. If the commission dismisses the complaint or issues a private reprimand, the results will not be made public.
If the commission certifies the case to the Virginia Supreme Court, the record would become public. That would happen about 30 to 45 days after the hearing.
Only six or seven cases in 25 years have been certified to the Supreme Court, said Reno Harp, the commission's staff counsel. Some cases have been handled quietly with resignations. In 1993, for example, Chesapeake Judge Stephen Comfort resigned from General District Court while under investigation. The commission never divulged details. ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
Luther C. Edmonds has been a judge since 1988. He was promoted from
General District Court to Circuit Court in 1995.
KEYWORDS: LEAVE OF ABSENCE COMPLAINT CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE
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