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The Des Moines Register
Saturday, June 1, 1996, Page 3M.
letters@dmreg.com

State legislator wants
change regarding judges

     Clive, Ia. - A state senator, upset with the sentencing of
former Urbandale police officer James Trimble, suggested Friday
that senior judges should not be allowed to decide such cases.
     Sen. 0. Gene Maddox, R-Clive, complained in a newsletter
that senior judges - who are retired but fill in on the bench
when needed - are not answerable to the public.
     "I believe we should change the law to add more
accountability for senior judges and/or to limit their
jurisdiction to non-criminal offenses," he wrote.  Maddox, a
former mayor of Clive, sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and
is up for relection in the fa11.
     Unlike their full-time colleagues, senior judges are not
subjected to periodic voter approval.
     The senior judge in the Trimble case, former Iowa Appeals
Court judge Leo Oxberger, could not be reached for comment
Friday.
     Oxberger sentenced Trimble to probation and 100 hours of
oommunity service after Trimble had been arrested with $20,000
worth of methamphetamine, which he admitted stealing from a
police evidence locker.  Prosecutors had argued that Trimble
should go to prison because he violated the public trust as an
anti-drug officer in Urbandale schools.