The Benoit watch

On a slow day, Democrats in central Maine have discovered that there is sport and diversion in bashing John Benoit, the conservative Republican judge who was shoved off the bench this year by his opponents in the Legislature and by the legal community, which didn’t like his style.

Judge Benoit, first appointed by Gov. James Longley and successfully reappointed by Gov. Joseph Brennan, withdrew his name from consideration last winter when it became clear that his confirmation hearings by the Judiciary Committee had turned into a bitter, partisan sideshow.

While Democrats on that committee sniffed that they only were doing what was proper — carrying out their charge to maintain only the very highest standards in Maine’s judiciary — Judge Benoit had the class to remove himself from the committee’s kangaroo courtroom and wave so-long, heading back to Farmington and Skowhegan to finish out his term in September.

Still smarting from this tactical withdrawal, which cheated him out of a prolonged opportunity to grandstand on the Benoit nomination, Rep. Patrick Paradis, D-Augusta, the House chairman of the committee, now is attacking Benoit because the judge was the object of a write-in campaign during the June primary.

According to Rep. Paradis, Judge Benoit is in a conflict of interest because he remains on the bench at a time when voters may have given him the Republican nomination for district attorney for Franklin, Androscoggin and Oxford counties. Maine’s code of judicial ethics prohibits sitting judges from engaging in political activity.

Paradis also gurgled something about Benoit’s “refusal to disavow all political activity” causing “serious concern among the defense bar in Franklin and Somerset counties.” This is tired stuff, Rep. Paradis. Benoit’s tough if unconventional stand on drunken driving has been giving that defense bar fits, for years. That’s one reason the bar helped get rid of him when his name was submitted for renomination.

Politicians who want to continue to hammer Benoit should first look at the facts. Benoit hasn’t been and isn’t campaigning for anything. At least, not yet. No one knows at this moment whether the write-in campaign was successful to place the judge’s name in nomination. The state hasn’t made anything official, and has until July 2 to do so. Benoit himself has been candid: “If I was going to be a candidate, I could not be a judge.”

Paradis and Co. have been running for months on full steam in their obsession with Benoit. It’s time for them to throttle back and let the process do the work. When the secretary of state rules in July on the sufficiency of the write-in campaign and Benoit’s candidacy, the judge will have 15 days in which to make up his mind.

Judge Benoit cannot be both judge and politician (something he learned the hard way during his confirmation hearings). When he decides he is running for office, he can and should step down.