Judge Lois Haight Herrington Plays Politics in Contra Costa Court

Preface

This story is about a single mother of 3 young children, an Orinda resident, who lost her husband 10 years ago in an accident. This mother became a target of extortion by her former nanny because of her financial standing.

After the Orinda mother refused to succumb to this nanny’s extortion threats, the nanny trashed the house to stage it as though the Orinda resident is an unfit parent.

The nanny is a nursing student attending Diablo Valley College who became intimately familiar with the processes and procedures of CPS through her training. After a CPS case was opened on the Orinda mother, it appears that Judge Lois Haight Herrington in the juvenile court may have hand-picked this case. Judge Haight Herrington refused to admit the nanny’s extortion letter into evidence. Judge Haight Herrington allowed her personal bias to taint this case, and she did not recuse herself from the case although the law requires her to do so in any matter where she has familial knowledge or where her impartiality is reasonably questionable.

Two Competing Committee Chairmen Serve Under Ronald Reagan

Bob Packwood was a Republican United State Senator who served as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance under Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s. During the same time, John Herrington was the United States Secretary of Energy and was also a member of the Republican Party. While Bob Packwood and John Herrington were both Republicans, Bob was considered a moderate Republican, who advocated for progressive issues like women’s rights. Packwood gained a substantial amount of supporters throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. By contrast, John Herrington was a less prominent politician, considered to be somewhat of an unknown.

Ultimately, while the two were respective committee chairs under the same administration, they often had conflicting political interests, despite being members of the same party. Some also speculated that animosity developed against Packwood by Herrington, as Packwood held the purse strings but Herrington did not. Unlike political rising star Packwood, Herrington was described as the “least known cabinet member” under Reagan.

Packwood Crossed Party Lines Against Prevailing GOP Interests

Though Packwood gained significant political accolades, at the same time, he was also considered something of a “radical” by the high-ranking members of the Republican Party nationally due to his advocacy for the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights. Packwood’s unrelenting support of women’s rights, an issue considered to be controversial in the 1970’s and 1980’s, did not go over well with the GOP. Packwood sponsored the Senate’s first abortion legalization bill two years before Roe v. Wade was introduced. Packwood won numerous awards from the Planned Federation of America for his pro-choice stance, and won an award from the National Women’s Political Caucus.

Packwood was the first Senate Republican in favor of President Nixon’s impeachment, which applied pressure to the rest of the Republican party to follow his lead after tremendous public outrage ensued against Nixon. Packwood also voted against the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. He was one of only two Republicans to vote against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, siding with Anita Hill. These SCOTUS votes were contrary to the voting of the rest of the Republican party, making Packwood a clear party outlier.

Bob Packwood was noted for playing a major role in creating the Hell’s Canyon National Recreation Area Act, which was considered a bold move in the conservation realm. Packwood may have challenged the status quo at the time for the Republican party in the area of environmentalism, as he zealously advocated for solar energy initiatives, container recycling legislation and bike path creation. Packwood's measures in these areas won him extensive publicity and bi-partisan support.

From Political Powerhouse to Scrutinized Subversive

Packwood had agreed to the probe by the Senate Committee after feminist lawyer Gloria Allred requested an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. In public statements, Packwood apologized for instances referencing alleged misconduct, according to New York Times press from 1993. In this same article, it is noted that there were questions ongoing about whether the attacks on Packwood were politically motivated. One possible motivating factor was that both the Democratic and Republican parties wanted to clear a seat in the Senate. After all, other Senators and politicians had been accused of the same improprieties of which Packwood was accused, but these political figures did not receive any significant adverse impact or intense public scrutiny as Packwood had.

It was widely speculated that Packwood would eventually run to become President of the United States. He was widely known and historically documented as one of the country’s most powerful elected officials during his time in the Senate.

Did the elite, core members of the GOP orchestrate Senator Packwood's removal from office?

In 1995, Packwood was forced to resign after being placed under tremendous scrutiny and pressure by the Republic Party for alleged sexual misconduct. The Chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee at the time was Senator Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, who deemed Packwood’s behavior “a gravely serious offense” and that it constituted “gross and persistent misconduct” (click here for relevant press). The leadership of the Republican party ousted Packwood via the Senate Ethics Committee, and led by Senator McConnell. The Chairman of the Republican Party for the state of California at the time was John Herrington, the former Secretary of Energy.

John Herrington’s Wife Judge Lois Haight Herrington

Herrington is married to Lois Haight Herrington, with whom he has two children. Lois Haight Herrington serves as a judge in the Contra Costa Superior Court. Haight has also served as the Chairman of the Task Force on Victims of Crime during the Ronald Reagan administration and has served as a juvenile court judge for over 20 years. Professionally, Lois Haight Herrington utilizes her maiden name of Haight and is known and referred to as Judge Lois Haight. She is required to adhere to the Judicial Canons as a requirement of her role as a judicial officer. She is also mandated to follow state and federal laws.

John S. Herrington and Wife Judge Lois Haight-Herrington

Recently, Judge Lois Haight has presided over a case in the juvenile court involving minor children who are a part of the Packwood family. According to the family involved, Judge Haight has at no time offered to recuse herself from this case. Canon 3 of the Code of Ethics states that, “A judge shall perform the duties of judicial office impartially, competently, and diligently.”

Further, two sections of Title 28 of the United States Code, the federal Judicial Code, provide standards for judicial disqualification or recusal. Section 455, captioned "Disqualification of justice, judge, or magistrate judge," provides that a judge is disqualified "where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding"; when the judge has previously served as a lawyer or witness concerning the same case or has expressed an opinion concerning its outcome; or when the judge or a member of his or her immediate family has a financial interest in the outcome of the proceeding.

Wouldn’t a personal family history, especially not an amicable one, impede a judge’s ability to rule impartially in a case?

The general rule is that, to warrant recusal, a judge's expression of an opinion about the merits of a case, or his familiarity with the facts or the parties, must have originated in a source outside the case itself. This is referred to in the United States as the "extra-judicial source rule" and was recognized as a general presumption, although not an invariable one, in the 1994 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Liteky v. United States. In spite of these laws having indisputable relevance to the current matter regarding the Packwood family, Judge Lois Haight has not recused herself, and further, Judge Lois Haight has also failed to disclose her conflicts of interest on record in these same proceedings.

Are Certain Political Agendas Best Served by Peddling Controversial Propaganda?

The public is often stirred by the emotional charge associated with controversial topics. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, the women’s liberation movement led to the initial sexual harassment allegations that emerged as legally actionable issues. Since then, and even more recently since the resurgence of the #MeToo movement, allegations of sexual harassment have been brought against various politicians and celebrities, from Harvey Weinstein to Justice Kavanaugh. In the cases of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, a pattern has been eventually demonstrated through substantiated claims of repeat offenses. In other instances such as with Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the latest nomination to the United States Supreme Court, circumstantial evidence and varying accounts of sexual misconduct have been alleged, but the true details and actual, exacting events remain somewhat unclear. As in the case of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, no claims were ever filed in court against Packwood for his alleged sexual misconduct.

One of Judge Lois Haight’s peers in the Contra Costa Superior Court, Judge John Laettner, was recently admonished by the Commission on Judicial Performance (CJP) for sexual harassment on the bench. The CJP has come under scrutiny in recent years for failing to agree to an audit in its entire history of operations, which is over 56 years. Legal analysts and court watchdogs have noted the CJP’s irregular, very infrequent, and highly varied instances of instigating disciplinary proceedings against judges. Rates of disciplinary actions against judges are relatively low in California, particularly when compared with judicial oversight authorities in other states. On October 5, 2018, Judge Laettner publicly defended against the CJP charges brought against him, citing a political agenda by others in the County such as the public defender’s office.

Politics 101: If They Want You Out, They’ll Find a Reason

Indeed, the recent proceedings initiated against Judge Laettner raise a critical question: are sexual harassment charges brought against only selected, and targeted politicians, when the stakes are high around them? And further, do actual consequences from such allegations only result when there are enough political forces driving the removal or re-assignment of the targeted office-holder?

This is a question that truly begs to be asked. Former US President Bill Clinton, for example, who publicly had sexual affairs, including with 21 year old Whitehouse intern Monica Lewinsky, was formally impeached but never removed from office. In other words, Clinton was allowed to stay in office and carry out his term as President, despite his blatant and provable sexual misconduct. While Bob Packwood, on the other hand, who was a political trailblazer for championing women’s rights, created many adversaries in his chosen political party of Republican, which consisted of many elite conservatives who conformed strictly to an archetypical right-wing agenda.

Sexual Harassment is Statistically Under-reported; How Many Other Politicians of Bob Packwood’s Era were Engaged in Similar (or Worse) Misconduct?

Incidentally, an opinion piece titled “Why politicians got away with sexual misconduct for so long” that criticized Packwood’s re-election to a second Senate term was written by the press secretary for Packwood’s challenger who lost in the election against Packwood. While there does appear to have been truth to the allegations that Packwood made advances upon women in the workplace, author Rachel Gorlin does not address whether Packwood’s peers were engaging in similar sexual misconduct at the time Packwood was reproached for his conduct, nor does Gorlin provide any analysis as to whether political factors at the time led to Packwood being singled out for conduct that is statistically under-reported by victims. Given that the prevalence of such sexual harassment is far greater than a smattering of public headlines with select big names would imply, wouldn’t it be logical to conclude that many well-known politicians have or are engaging in similar sexual misconduct?

The Not-So-Strategic Use of the “False Flag” Propaganda Tool

“False flags”, a term coined to describe a covert operation used to distract from an important issue or impose a false narrative that draws even more attention than the initially concerning issue, are peppered throughout the media headlines of today. In fact, unbeknownst to some, circa July 2013, a law was repealed that enabled news media to peddle US government propaganda to the masses (access related press here).

Accordingly, the political “spin” that is applied to the resulting news stories that are released today substantially alters the accuracy of these stories. Is it any wonder that Americans are so confused, and their ideologies woven with factual misnomers and half-truths?

As IBM programmer and instructor George Fuechsel warned regarding the ways in which manipulated data decreases the ability to draw meaningful and accurate conclusions, “garbage in….garbage out.”

Footnote: At the time of publication of this story, a complaint has been filed with the United States Department of Justice, who is being asked to investigate the improprieties of Judge Lois Haight Herrington.