A western Kentucky judge has been suspended without pay for 15 days for jailing 17 Hispanic immigrants indefinitely after asking federal authorities to investigate their status.

The state Judicial Conduct Commission on Thursday ordered Judge Sue Carol Browning, who oversees cases in Logan and Todd counties, off the bench from April 28 through May 12.

Browning ordered the men detained after they were stopped for traffic infractions. Some were held without bail for as long as three weeks in August and September.


The commission said Browning violated the canons of judicial conduct by instructing police officers to arrest immigrants without identification during traffic stops, then denying the men a right to bail.

"The Commission has concluded that it should have been obvious to Judge Browning as a sworn judge to support the Constitution that her denial of the right to bail in 17 cases was seriously wrong," commission Chairman Stephen Wolnitzek of Fort Wright wrote in the decision.

Circuit Judge Tyler Gill ruled in October that the men were "jailed without reason."

Browning, who had no prior infractions with the commission, agreed to the suspension. She did not immediately return a call for comment.

Paul Witte, a pastoral associate for St. Susan Catholic Church in Elkton who works with immigrants, filed the complaint against Browning that led to the suspension.

Witte said he was surprised by the suspension because Browning has backed off jailing immigrants for minor offenses in recent months. Before that, though, Browning routinely sought to jail immigrants for crimes that otherwise would be handled with a fine, he said.

"She was being very harsh in her treatment of them," Witte said.

The Rev. Patrick Delahanty, associate director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, who aided the immigrants, applauded the commission's decision and Browning's acceptance of it.

"I think it demonstrates that we have to follow the laws," Delahanty said. "We have a court system and people have to play by the rules, even if they are judges."

Browning's conduct "created an impression" that the judge had a racial bias or prejudice, the commission said. The investigation found no evidence that was true.

Browning previously has ordered illegal immigrants in her court to leave Kentucky as a condition of probation and had given some 72 hours to do so, court records show.

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ ... 419/-1/all


I don’t believe this has been posted yet, I used the search bar and check back a few weeks nothing matched so if its a duplicate , delete it.
If its not I like to ask you guys to push hard on this one


As to my view on the issue


The judge is just doing the job no other pollution filled politician will do and the people that support the suspending of the judge are going to loose more then the judge will, if they all them selves to keep helping criminals....

I think that (IMO) some America have been doing to long with the criminals and accepting Greed of the dollar as its ok to do it because its been going on so long. These people cant seem to get over the fact that the Illegals will soon be gone and some things will need to be done differently.
The church (IMO) has nothing to gain or loose by sticking its nose in this kind of stuff in the first place.

Three weeks in jail for those criminal immigrants/ American invaders, that time didn’t harm anyone accept the tax payer pockets a few bucks (which in kentucky is billed back to the criminal )letting them remain free would have been ten times detrimental to the state of Kentucky….