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An Oklahoma choose caught sending a whole bunch of texts and scrolling social media throughout a homicide trial final 12 months acknowledged her “inappropriate” habits whereas resigning.
Soderstrom resigned on Friday, three days earlier than she had been scheduled to go on trial in a particular court docket.
Safety footage confirmed Traci Soderstrom, a now-former choose for Lincoln and Pottawatomie counties, extensively on her telephone in the course of the June 2023 trial. The defendant, Khristian Tyler Martzall, was on trial over the 2018 killing of his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son.
A subsequent investigation by the Oklahoma Supreme Courtroom decided that Soderstrom texted greater than 500 occasions together with her bailiff in the course of the trial “wherein they mocked the bodily look of attorneys, jurors, and witnesses and used offensive language to deride the State’s attorneys,” in keeping with a petition filed in October 2023 by Oklahoma Supreme Courtroom Chief Justice M. John Kane IV.
Then-Lincoln County District Decide Traci Soderstrom is seen her cellphone throughout a homicide trial on June 8, 2023, on this nonetheless picture from safety digicam video.
Lincoln County Sheriff’s Workplace
“There have been some issues that I did inappropriately,” Soderstrom mentioned throughout a press occasion on Friday. “I texted throughout a trial. It would not matter whether or not it was a visitors case or whether or not it was a divorce case or whether or not it was a first-degree homicide case. I texted in the course of the trial and that was inappropriate.”
In his petition, Kane mentioned that Soderstrom and her bailiff “referred to as homicide trial witnesses liars, admired the seems to be of a police officer who was testifying, disparaged the native protection bar, expressed bias in favor of the defendant and displayed gross partiality towards the State.”
Among the many texts referenced, the then-judge mentioned a district lawyer was “sweating via his coat,” described the protection lawyer as “superior” and referred to as a prosecutor’s witness a liar, in keeping with the petition.
Soderstrom’s sample of conduct demonstrated “gross neglect of responsibility, gross partiality, and oppression” in addition to a “lack of temperament to function a choose,” Kane wrote in his petition.
In her remarks on Friday, Soderstrom pushed again towards the characterization of her texts.
“The content material and the insinuation and the amount and the size of these issues I’m not agreeing to as a result of it would not matter,” she mentioned.
She additionally disputed that she displayed any bias within the case.
“I did not make up my thoughts. Even when I had, that would not have mattered, as a result of I used to be not the fact-finder,” she mentioned.
An order of dismissal within the case filed on Friday notes that Soderstrom has voluntarily resigned and agrees to not search any judicial place within the state once more.
Soderstrom was elected as a choose in November 2022 and took the bench in January 2023. She had served for six months earlier than the homicide trial.
The defendant within the trial was finally discovered responsible by a jury of second-degree manslaughter and sentenced to time served.
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