Natalie Chase.Photo: office of judicial performance evaluation
A Colorado judge has resigned from her post after she said a racial slur multiple times in front of colleagues, and declared that “all lives matter” while discussing Black Lives Matter protests from the courtroom bench.
The first incident cited took place in late January or early February 2020, when Chase drove herself, her former law clerk and a Black Family Court Facilitator to a program in Pueblo, Colorado, according to the order.
As the group drove back from Pueblo, Chase asked the facilitator “questions about why Black people can use the N-word, but not white people, and whether it was different if the N-word is said with an ‘er’ or an ‘a’ at the end of the word,” the order said.
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Chase used “the full N-word” multiple times during the conversation, which the facilitator said left her “angry and hurt,” per the order.
Then, that February, Chase was discussing the Super Bowl with several others, including two Black employees, while wearing her robe and sitting on the bench during a break in court, the order said.
Chase said she would be boycotting the event because she “objected to the NFL players who were kneeling during the National Anthem in protest of police brutality against Black people,” according to the order.
Months later, in May, two Black court employees were in Chase’s courtroom discussing Black Lives Matter protests in Denver shortly after the death of George Floyd, the order said.
Again in her robe and from the bench, Chase chimed in to offer her opinions on the movement, and “stated that she believes all lives matter,” according to the order, which noted that Chase did also say that the involved police officers' conduct should be investigated.
The order cited other allegations of misconduct, including Chase directing her law clerk to do legal research related to a personal family legal issue, and repeatedly discussing personal and family matters at work “in a manner that was not dignified or courteous.”
Chase also called another judge a “f— b—” while talking to her clerk, according to the order.
The order said that Chase has “expressed remorse, apologized for [her] conduct, and agreed to waive [her] right to a hearing in formal proceedings, to be publicly censured, and to resign [her] position as a Judge.”
Public censure of judges in Colorado is “extremely rare,” according to theDenver Post, which reported that just four of the more than 400 working judges were publicly censured between 2010 and 2020.
Chase was appointed to the District Court in July 2014, and oversaw cases involving divorce, post-divorce enforcement and modification and child support matters, according toCNN.
source: people.com
