A Study of a Sexual Abuse Case Against Court Marshals

The case below is of a judge (Patricia Doninger) who allowed her court marshals to degrade and sexually abuse a lady who was attending court hearings about her divorce case. After an investigation on the August 12 incident where the judge boycotted her responsibility of helping the victim and instead started playing with the victim’s underage child Patricia has been stopped from work until her case is complete. It is alleged that she ignores the Hispanic woman as the court marshals groped and tortured her in the family court. A video footage of the incident was later retrieved following the session and it was evident that the judge had neglected her duties and she was playing with the child while the mother was crying for help. The judge also assumed the misconduct of the marshals who were assaulting the woman sexually in the name of searching for drugs.

After the incident, the information officer in Clark County directed all inquiries about the incidence to be done via emails and not through calls. There seemed to be misinformation on the issue and Mr. Price who is the information officer was not briefed about the happenings. He even did not know if the judge had been terminated or not. It was allege that the information officer had hidden withheld the information from the Las Vegas Tribute due to unclear conflict of interest in the matter or due to manipulation from the judge (Smartt, 2016). The termination of Judge Patricia was however announced and many newspapers wrote about it online and on paper. Many comments revolving around the case were raised by angry citizens who were against the abuse of women rights and they demanded severe action to be taken on the Judge and her two marshals. Hell broke loose when someone commented on one paper on how he was going to rape and kill the victim on the page of one newspaper. This person must have been a supporter of the judge or the marshals and this spun anger within many reader of that paper. People declared it unacceptable and devious that a popular newspaper would post a comment that supported crime.

The marshal was identified as Ron Fox from the video that was obtained. It is alleged that after the woman claimed that the marshal had sexually assaulted her, he arrested her and tried to drag her to a private room. When questioned, the marshal affirmed that he had done that to give him space to search for drugs on the lady. This is ironical because the footage showed the marshal forcing the lady to list her skirt as he fondled her. The judge who was playing with the woman’s daughter seemed not to care much about the commotion the marshal had crated though the footage show the woman crying for help from the judge (Palmieri, 2014). It was sad that the young child was the one who responded to tell the marshal to leave her mother alone.

Following the incidence, Fox was fired but the victim was not informed and there were no compensations made. It was unclear why the judge would deny justice to the vulnerable woman in such a humiliating manner which gave a lead to the corruption that exists in Nevada’s courtrooms (Smartt, 2016). The arrest of Fox on the other hand also gave leads on the chain of incidents that happen in Nevada courts of humiliation and abuse. Thereafter, there were cases marshals who chocked citizens in a courtroom. After the arrest of Fox, he sued for unfair termination and arrest. On the other hand, Judge Patricia was also fired due to misconduct in the courtroom and negligence of work. It was also suspected the judge had been bribed by the plaintiff’s husband.

Judge Patricia had been a domestic violence hearing master in Clark’s county family Court since 1999 but she was fired after this incidence. The court ruled that she was not in a position to offer credible judgment of a case and that she was unable to conduct herself in a professional way while in the courtroom (Maguire, 2015). There was a series of cover ups of the sexual assault in the courtroom when the investigations were in progress. The video revealed that the plaintiff had been taken to a separate room where Fox assaulted her, when they came back to the courtroom; she confessed what the marshal had done to her. The marshal is then seen handcuffing the plaintiff as he claims that she was giving false confessions. The case ended when the Patricia, Fox and Kenyon were fired and arrested for misconduct and abuse of civil rights. Other lawsuits in Clark County also emanated from this case owing to the reckless, wrongful and deliberate abuse that the defendants did to the woman and failed to deliver justice (Maguire, 2015).

Beside the legal criteria, these defendants also violated the ethical principles of the plaintiff. This is evident where the judge is busy playing with the child while the mother is begging for help. Women rights should also be respected and the fact the marshals assaulted the woman, the violated the ethical principle of the courtroom and of civil rights. It is also important that they did all this obscene acts in the view of the child which paints a bad picture about the conduct of the judge and the marshals.