TOPEKA, Kan. — Reno County District Judge Joe McCarville has been appointed to sit with the Kansas Supreme Court next Wednesday to hear oral arguments in a proceeding relating to judicial conduct.
After hearing oral arguments, Judge McCarville will join Supreme Court justices in their deliberations and opinion drafting.
Before he was a district court judge, McCarville served as a district magistrate judge. Before that, he was in a private law practice for 22 years, was Reno County attorney, assistant Reno County attorney and assistant Shawnee County district attorney. He graduated from Washburn University School of Law.
All Supreme Court oral arguments are webcast live through the Watch Supreme Court Live! link in the right-hand column of the Kansas Judicial Branch website at www.kscourts.org.
The case Judge McCarville will hear is scheduled at 9 a.m and is in regard to Judge Timothy H. Henderson, in 18th Judicial District of Sedgwick County.
On March 21, a panel of the Commission on Judicial Qualifications issued a Notice of Formal Proceedings against Judge Henderson, alleging that he engaged in harassment by repeatedly making inappropriate and offensive comments in the presence of female staff employed by the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, which resulted in a hostile working environment and gender bias; that he sent an email from his personal email account to employees of the Department for Children and Families that exhibited a negative stereotype and/or hostility or aversion toward an attorney and the attorney’s beliefs that conveyed the appearance of bias and prejudice; that he engaged in ex parte communication; and that he approached a board member of the Wichita Board of Education and requested that she investigate the reason why his wife was not offered a teaching contract, if appropriate records had been kept, and if there was any foul play involved.
The panel recommended to the Supreme Court that Henderson be disciplined by public censure. Henderson did not take exceptions and further noted that he does not request the right to address the Supreme Court regarding the disposition of this case unless counsel for the Commission of Judicial Qualifications is granted authority to address the court.