Judge Caught Red-Handed in Santa Cruz Co. Traffic Ticket Scandal

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CA — Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Ariadne Symons received a severe public censure from a judicial commission Monday for failing to accept responsibility for running a red light and aiding her husband in a misleading effort to get the ticket dismissed. The San Francisco-based Commission on Judicial Performance also concluded that Symons had improper contact with a jury and prosecutor in a criminal trial and made inappropriate or biased remarks in two other cases.

Symons, a former assistant district attorney who joined the court in 2009 and sits in the Santa Cruz courthouse, consented to the commission's factual findings of misconduct and the disciplinary decision. She said in a statement, "I accept the findings of the Commission on Judicial Performance and believe that this process will make me a better judge now and in the future."

Symons ran the red light in her 2007 Pontiac in Capitola on the morning of May 10, 2016. When she arrived at court, she told a fellow judge and others at the courthouse that she had driven through the light and realized it was recorded on a camera, according to the commission's decision. But the notice of violation was sent a month later to her husband, in whose name the car was registered. The citation required the recipient to state if he was not the driver and provided a procedure for identifying the actual driver. Instead of disclosing that Symons was the driver, her husband submitted a statement saying he could not have been the driver because he was at work at the Pebble Beach golf course at the time.

The commission said Symons reviewed the statement; printed it out on her courthouse computer; obtained advice on filling out documents from a clerk in a staff-only area of the court's Watsonville courthouse on two occasions; and personally gave the completed documents to the clerk, who forwarded them to the traffic commissioner at the Santa Cruz courthouse. The citation was dismissed by Capitola police on July 20, 2016.

The commission concluded Symons violated judicial ethics by knowingly aiding her husband in the dismissal effort, failing to notify Capitola police that she was the driver, failing to tell her court that her husband had a pending matter that involved her and obtaining help from the court clerk in a staff-only area. Her actions "reflect an egregious disregard for the dignity of the very court where Judge Symons serves as a judicial officer," the commission said.

The commission is composed of six public members, three judges and two lawyers. It investigates complaints of judicial misconduct and can impose punishments ranging from an advisory letter to private admonishment, public admonishment, public censure or removal from office.

—Bay City News