By bringing their high office to new lows, these judges have earned the annual READER'S DIGEST BROKEN GAVEL AWARD.

Guilt.  Innocence.  Life.  Death.  We give judges the power and independence to change lives.  In return, we expect them to uphold the highest standards of professional conduct.  Most serve us well - but not all.

We decided to find out which judges weren't holding up their end of the bargain.  Our Broken Gavel is not awarded for small lapses of judgment or petty mistakes, but for serious violations and charges (see box page 124).  These reflect standards set up by the American Bar Association and state codes of judicial conduct.  In making our selections, we reviewed cases before state judicial commission, and the files of the American Judicature Society, a nonpartisan clearinghouse for judicial ethics nationwide.

Should this year's award winners be stripped of their robes?  You decide.

BENCHABLE OFFENSES

Broken Gavel Nominees are evaluated using a list drawn, in part, from American Bar Association and state codes of judicial conduct.

Criminal conduct; Unprofessional behavior in the courtroom; Undignified conduct outside the courtroom; Demonstration of bias; Sexual misconduct; Substance abuse; Undisclosed conflicts; Failure to follow the law; Use of office to grant or receive favors; Lack of candor or cooperation with authorities.

Alan McDonald, Yakima, Wash. - U.S. District Judge Alan McDonald had an unusual way of amusing himself in court:  exchanging offensive notes with his longtime deputy court clerk, Pam Posada.  In hundreds of courtroom comments they disparaged Jews, Hispanics, African Americans, Chinese and Mormons who appeared before the judge.

McDonald's court reporter, Kathryn Blankenship, testifying in a co-worker's discrimination claim against the federal court in Washington State, spoke of the judge's "regular and excessive profanity, sexist and racist jokes and comments."

A few days after her testimony, Blankenship alleges that McDonald confronted her and said, "You serve at my pleasure, and you aren't pleasuring me anymore."  She was encouraged to transfer jobs, but declined.  The judge has said the attempt to transfer her was due to poor work performance.

McDonald's courtroom conduct was made public when the Spokane Spokesman-Review published some of the notes passed between him and Posada.

- In one exchange, Posada wrote of a Mormon witness, "He's been a con man for a long time!"  The judge replied, "Yes, and in my experience, a Mormon money man makes the Jews and Chinese look like rank amateurs!"  (McDonald said later that he probably "made that remark out of respect for the Mormons I know.")

- During a case involving Hispanic defendants and lawyers, Posada slipped the judge a note, which was passed on to Blankenship:  "It smells like oil in here - too many 'greasers'."  (McDonald says he never saw the note.)

- McDonald described one plaintiff, a black former bank vice president, as "Old Shoeless Jesse."  During the man's testimony the judge passed a mocking note - this time to Blankenship - that read, "Ah is Im po tent!"  (McDonald claimed later it was a self-deprecatory remark.)

The judge's most thorough public explanation came in an interview with the Spokane newspaper, in which he said the notes were "misinterpreted."

His behavior was condemned by the Washington State Bar Association, and a panel of fellow federal judges reprimanded McDonald for conduct "prejudicial to the effective administration of the business of the courts."

Nonetheless, Judge McDonald, 74, continues to sit as a federal judge in Yakima, drawing a salary of $150,000.

Susan Chrzanowski, Warren, Mich. - On a humid August afternoon in 1999, in the Detroit suburb of Hazel Park, a gunshot rang out inside the red brick bungalow of a young family of three.

A frantic 911 call was placed by Mick Fletcher, a 29-year-old defense attorney:  "My wife just show herself," he said, between gasps and sobs.  "She's on the floor.  There's blood all over... Oh, my God.. Honey? ... It's right through her head."

Police quickly arrived to find Leanne Fletcher, 29, sprawled on the carpet, a pool of blood spreading from a wound through her right ear.  A Smith & Wesson .45 lay on the carpet nearby.

At the police station, Fletcher said he and his wife had dropped off their three-year-old daughter with his in-laws, then went target shooting at a gun range.  Back home he asked her to finish loading a gun clip, and went into the bathroom.  Then he heard the shot.

Police, though, opened an investigation.  The chief medical examiner declared the death a homicide, and concluded that Leanne was shot from too far away for her to have done it herself.  A state forensic scientist theorized she'd been shot while on her hands and knees.

With the discovery of love letters in Fletcher's closet, a motive for murder began to take shape.  He was having an affair with Warren District Court Judge Susan Chrzanowski.  Police also recovered romantic e-mails between the pair.

The day after the murder, according to police, the 32-year-old judge acknowledged she and Fletcher had a brief affair that had ended five months earlier, and said that she had not talked to him since his wife's death.

Two days after that interview, Chrzanowski, lawyer in tow, met again with investigators.  She said the affair had been on-and-off for about a year.  In fact, the night before the shooting, Fletcher paged her, and they had a quick sexual rendezvous.  Chrzanowski also admitted to talking with Fletcher by phone after his wife's death.

The judge was shocked to learn that Leanne was pregnant.  Fletcher had convinced her that he was not having relations with his wife.

Had Fletcher decided to kill his wife, hide her pregnancy and run off with his true love?  Tried in June 2000, Fletcher was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.  He has appealed the verdict.

As for Chrzanowski, the Michigan Supreme Court appointed one of its retired state justices, Charles Levin, to conduct a hearing on her actions.  It also accepted the state's Judicial Tenure commission (JTC) recommendation to give her an interim suspension with pay.

Levin's investigation considered the matter of Chrzanowski's initial statements to police.  At a JTC hearing she declared she was too overwrought to remember what she had said.

Levin also looked at how Chrzanowski had steered 56 indigent clients to Fletcher, for which he'd earned $16,000.  The fact that she was having an affair with a defense attorney who had cases before her was never disclosed to the prosecutors.

In December 2000, to the surprise of judicial onlookers, Levin recommended that Chrzanowski not be disciplined.  But the Michigan Supreme Court ruled very differently a year later, saying Chrzanowski's conduct "was unbecoming of the office that she holds" and then suspending her for six months without pay.  That came on the heels of a 17-month suspension, during which the judge continued to collect her $134,366 salary.

Chrzanowski returned to the bench this past July.  She intends to serve out her term, which ends on December 31, 2002.

Steven Ray Karto, Harrison County, Ohio - Patricia Smith, a mother of three young children, was standing outside the Harrison County Courthouse crying after seeing her boyfriend sent away to jail.  The presiding judge in that case, Steven Ray Karto, walked by Smith and claimed he saw her simulate a gun with her hand and make a popping sound.  Smith denied doing it, and two eyewitnesses later supported her version of events.

But Karto hauled her into court for a hearing and demanded an apology, which Smith gave.  He then charged the terrified woman with contempt.  "I could put you in jail for a long time," Karto told Smith from the bench.  He added that if he saw her in his courtroom in the next three years, "you'll do at least 30 days and we'll probably find something else to add at that point."

It wasn't the first time Karto had used the threat of contempt.  Consider the fate of Kristin Davia, a supervisor with Harrison County's department of human services.  Karto ordered that Davia place a child with foster parents in an adjacent county.  But Davia learned the child could stay with that family for just a few days, so she placed the youth in another home.  When Karto learned his order had been countermanded, he was livid.

Just after midnight Davia got a call from one of her caseworkers, who was with Karto at the county sheriff's office.  Karto was demanding that Davia, on threat of arrest, wake the child and drive him back to the first foster home.  She and the foster parents were incredulous, but Davia trundled the boy into her car at 2 a.m. and carried out Karto's command.  Two days later Karto changes his mind and placed the boy back in the second home.

But, according to county prosecutor Mathew Puskarich, the judge's anger lingered.  Karto told him to inform Human Services director John Snodgrass that Davia had two choices:  resign or he'd initiate contempt proceedings.  Six weeks later Davia took a social services job in another Ohio county.  In the eyes of many, Karto ran a dedicated social worker out of town.

Davia couldn't have been too surprised.  Three years before, she saw Karto lash out at Snodgrass in a classic case of abuse of judicial power.

In April 1994, Karto had ordered Snodgrass to place a juvenile delinquent in foster care near the residence of the girl's parents.  Snodgrass was unable to find a suitable home before leaving for a job-related seminar, and informed the judge of this in a letter.

Karto blew up.  He subpoenaed 13 witnesses to appear for a contempt hearing that afternoon, even though Snodgrass had not been served and could not appear.  In court, Karto launched into a tirade against Human Services, saying Snodgrass might be unreachable because there are no phones on golf courses.

The next day Snodgrass was in the courtroom to hear Karto lambaste the department.  The judge said Human Services was "crap-stirring" in his court.  Taking on the role of prosecutor, Karto himself questioned six witnesses he called to the stand.

Sensing he was in trouble with the court, Snodgrass quickly hired a lawyer, Alan Banker.  It did little good.  Karto later told Banker that Snodgrass would now know better than to get into a "pissing contest with the skunk."

On the final day of the hearing, Banker called the judge as a witness.  At a minimum, Karto should have recused himself as a judge in the case.  Instead, he took off his robe, sat in the witness chair and was questioned.  The situation was mind-boggling.  If Karto didn't like Banker's queries, he could object as prosecutor, then sustain the objection as judge - all while sitting as a witness.

Karto held Snodgrass for criminal contempt of court.  But the man was never fined and never served time.

The cumulative effect of Judge Karto's abuses brought action from the Ohio Supreme Court last January.  At one point, the Chief Justice of the Court asked Karto, "You're saying a judge can testify in a case and then decide that case?  Wow.  Wow!"

Disciplined for four counts of judicial misconduct and a number of violations of judicial and lawyer conduct codes, Karto received a mere six-month suspension.  He was back on the bench in August and is running for re-election this November.

Maria Lopez, Boston, Mass. - On a fall night in 1999, James Neville, a senior at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, was strolling back to campus with friends after an evening at a local bar.  It was 1:45 a.m., and they were enjoying their walk, laughing and talking.  Neville was giving a piggyback ride to fellow collegian Mindy Lundin.

A red Lincoln pulled to the curb, and the passenger yelled to Lundin, "Nice ass."

"Watch it," Neville warned.

At that, Anthony Ducharme, 21 jumped out of the car and smashed a beer bottle against Neville's neck, causing a deep and bloody laceration.

Lundin tried to intercede, but Ducharme slammed her to the ground.  Then he fled.

Rushed to the hospital by ambulance, Neville underwent emergency surgery to close the wound, which took about 100 stitches.  The cut was one-sixteenth of an inch from a major artery that, if severed, would have killed Neville before help arrived.

Within a week, Ducharme was arrested.  He was well known to police.  Only four days before the unprovoked attack, he'd been released from jail.  He was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and threatening in a 1995 incident, and given a two-year suspended sentence.  In 1997, he was convicted of assault and battery and malicious destruction of property, and spent about 18 months behind bars - getting out just in time to nearly murder Neville.

Ducharme was fortunate when his case was assigned.  As the Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory put it:  "[Ducharme] found himself in the comforting cocoon of Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez's courtroom, where the open secret among law enforcement officials is that criminals too often get an easy ride."

And that's just what happened after Ducharme pleaded guilty.  The district attorney sought a sentence of six to eight years in state prison on charges of assault and battery, mayhem and threatening.  Instead, Judge Lopez handed Ducharme a mere one year of county jail time.

Since her first appointment to the bench 14 years ago, Lopez has become a favorite of defense attorneys who'd rather plead clients guilty in her court than face a jury and another judge.

In November 1999, Charles Horton talked a 12-year-old boy into his car, held a screwdriver to his neck, and forced him to simulate sexual acts.  Only the quick intervention of police, who were suspicious of Horton's parked car in a deserted industrial area, prevented a more heinous assault.

At a September 2000 hearing, Horton pleaded guilty to kidnapping, attempted rape of a child, indecent assault and assault with a dangerous weapon.  Assistant District Attorney David Deakin asked Lopez to impose a minimum sentence of eight years.

Describing the crimes as "very low level" compared with other cases involving sexual assaults on children, Lopez gave Horton five years' probation.  She immediately came under fire, with then-Massachusetts Gov. Paul Cellucci calling the decision "every parent's worst nightmare."  The controversy didn't end there.

The Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct investigated Lopez' handling of the Horton case and charged her with several ethical violations.  Among other things, the commission alleged that Lopez showed bias against a prosecutor and made misleading public comments about the case.  Lopez denied all the charges and defended the Horton sentence.

Her decision was based on several factors, she said, including that the crime didn't involve pedophilia, the victim wasn't physically injured, and a psychological evaluation showed "the risk that Horton would repeat the offense behavior was low."  A public hearing on the ethical charges is slated for this fall.

Lopez has granted only one interview since the Horton case, to the Miami-based Spanish-language Univision network.  She suggested she was being criticized unfairly because she is female and Hispanic.

WORKING TOGETHER TO ATTAIN FAIRNESS