H.R. 8 Resolution Admonishing and Censuring Judge Don M. Torgerson: transcript

Thank you, chair and committee. And I apologize. I, this is a weird committee. This is you guys weird me at weird times. I am so sorry. That is true. I've been here a lot, you think I would've learned by now. So I appreciate the opportunity to present this. As you know, there's been a number of, um, bills this session, and even last session looking at, uh, judicial, uh, accountability. And this is, uh, a bill. This is a, uh, a resolution that, uh, that stems from some activities from a particular judge going back last May, um, to go over some of those details without getting too graphic, um, there was an individual who was brought before the court, um, who had been convicted and pled guilty to multiple counts of child sex exploitation, and included, uh, uh, hundreds of records of, uh, video and images of young children, um, uh, being raped and sexually abused. The, uh, judge in question during the sentencing hearing had made some statements that were wild, widely, uh, reported on and considered, um, inappropriate, um, including, uh, discussing, um, in, in reviewing the child sexual abuse material that, uh, he had seen worse. And also, um, when it came time to the, um, reviewing the sentencing, um, guidelines and making a determination of, um, the outcome of this case, um, statements to the, uh, individual who had pled guilty to some of his, uh, um, privilege, um, and discussing in matters of his privilege that may indicate as to why, um, a recommendation of lighter sentencing, also including in included in this resolution in some discussion as to the court's own statements about, um, the, uh, the, the outcome of this and the actions that were taken, um, by the court. Um, in, in fact, uh, a statement that still, as far as I understand, still out there, um, from the court's, indicating that there was some general agreement beforehand, um, with the prosecutor over, uh, whether or not this individual would serve any additional jail time that was, uh, publicly reported by the prosecutor to not be true, and that they had, um, discussed, uh, arguing additional jail time in the courtroom. Uh, effectively at the end of this, uh, um, process, the, the judge, um, did not face any, um, any, um, um, a a as far as the, um, disciplinary aspect of this. Um, the, the courts went through their own process and, uh, that was done behind closed doors. And, uh, there was some private letters that were sent out, um, to some individuals indicating some remorse, uh, from the judge. But, uh, um, as far as any public actions that were taken, um, none was, none occurred. And, uh, after the amount of reporting and the public outcry that came from this, um, and the fact that our judges do face retention, um, every six years, there was an indication that we should, uh, as a legislative body take a position and, uh, indicate that, that this, uh, um, this activity was not, uh, appropriate in a courtroom, especially from someone that holds such a high position. And, and I will just say briefly, you know, I've worked, uh, now for 12 years in, uh, law enforcement oversight, um, uh, on a board with West Valley City. And I understand that there are, we have good officers that sometimes make bad decisions, and those decisions sometimes can cause, uh, problems. It doesn't mean they're a bad person, it doesn't mean that they're not a good officer, but in most cases, those officers have to take ownership of their mistakes. And there's typically a price to be paid because, um, we hold them in such high levels of public trust. And because of that, um, those, those consequences sometimes could mean that they lose their job. It could mean that they lose some pay, um, they could, uh, be transferred, um, and those things happen on a regular basis. Um, but for this particular judge, um, there was no public, um, apology. There was no, um, public discipline. And, uh, for that reason, this, um, resolution is, is sought to be brought forward here to outline that in our highest levels of government at a judge level, we hold the standards very high, and we expect that our judges take ownership when they make mistakes, um, and that the process is, is public so that trust can maintain in the system. And that's my presentation.

Representative Lee, Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, and thank you representative for bringing this before us today. Uh, you know, I, I think you stated it very, very well. How, you know, we, you know, we, in the legislature, we have a voice. Uh, there's our, there are retention processes that can go through to hold people accountable, but in, in this case, what, what I found the most, uh, appalling is there's no public apology on this, uh, no accountability to, to what they have said and done. And these are some of the most egregious types of, of is issues that this person had committed. And I just, I felt like the judge was giving them a pass in some degree. And so, I, I appreciate you, you moving this forward. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee members. Can you hear me? Okay, my name's Michael Drexel. I'm the assistant state court administrator. Um, I don't fault you for, uh, considering, uh, Accenture, um, if you would like to, you have a voice and you can speak about the things that you find to be both satisfactory and unsatisfactory. I think the concern that I have about this particular resolution is that it, it addresses more than just some statements that were made by a judge. Um, even the judge, I think would acknowledge, and Representative Lee has said, well, acknowledge it publicly. I, I understand that, uh, would acknowledge that there were statements made that would made be made differently in light of what lessons have been learned by the judge through this experience. But the resolution goes beyond that to suggest that the judge imposed a sentence that was lighter on this defendant than would otherwise be deserved. And that misleads, I think, the public into believing that this judge didn't do the judge's job. Now, you again, may disagree with some of the statements that he made in doing his job, but there's nothing in this resolution that indicates the truth of the matter, that the legislature adopts sentencing guidelines for judges to consider that this sentence was squarely in the middle of those sentencing guidelines. In fact, the jail sentence that the defendant received in this case was seven days longer than the guideline amount that you, as legislators adopted for judges to use. And it feels frustrating from the judicial perspective to have the legislature at once put in place a structured way for decisions to be made, including the preparation of a pre-sentence investigative report in which this particular defendant scored low on every single assessment in terms of risk, and in which they did argue for or request 210 days of jail, but made no justification for why the judge should deviate from the midpoint in the sentencing guidelines and go to the very ceiling of those guidelines. In light of the fact that the defendant was low in every domain, he imposes a sentence consistent with those guidelines, and then he gets censured for issuing a lighter sentence than this defendant deserved. There's nothing in the resolution about the prosecutor having 21st degree felonies in two different cases against a defendant. And dismissing 18 of those 21st degree felonies of the remaining two first degree felonies, the prosecutor reduced those to second degree felonies, which if the prosecutor were familiar with the sentencing guidelines, he would know that that would immediately push this case into a presumptive probation sentencing. Had the prosecutor held onto a single first degree felony, it would've been presumptive prison. In other words, talk me out of sending you to prison. Not talk me into it. The final thing that I think is frustrating in the resolution is that it suggests that somehow the judiciary was, um, misleading. In fact, it comes out and just says that about what the plea agreement was. And I don't know if any of you have seen the plea agreement, but there were two relevant provisions in that plea agreement. One was that the parties had no stipulation about additional incarceration time, and that the parties would be permitted to argue their positions at sentencing about additional incarceration time. That was paragraph five of the plea agreement. Paragraph seven says that the defendant entered his pleas in exchange for the understanding that he will be placed on supervised probation. You cannot be placed on supervised probation and go to prison. You can't, you come outta prison on parole, not probation. So if the prosecutor and the defendant made an agreement that the defendant would be placed on supervised probation, he can't go to prison at sentencing. But the prosecutor argued for sentencing anyway in contravention of the plea agreement. That's the thing that we were pointing out in our response, uh, when the initial news stories hit in May of 2025. For these reasons, uh, we have some frustration with the way the language is, is currently written in the con in the resolution.

Thank you, Mr. Drexel. I, um, I think I agree with you on, uh, the behavior of the prosecutor. I don't understand that at all in this case. And frankly, I I think I'd rather have that, that one here as part of that. I don't know how that works or if that's even a thing. Um, but, uh, how, what, can you tell me what the court has done internally? Uh, and this, this can be a difficult question for you to answer, um, to address that issue. The, the judge and the, and the judge component of it, or the prosecutor component Of Mr. Yeah. The judge in that relationship and making those kind of recommendations. I don't know if it's a Sure. A training problem or we have a, uh, just a naive prosecutor or somebody that just is new. I don't know what those situations are, but what has the court done to help to guide that? I mean, I view the court in a lot of ways as kind of, you know, you're the guide, you're the branch, you're the sure, you're the boss in charge, how these things should generally go.

I appre the, you appreciate the question, Mr. Chair. I don't know that we have any formal suggestions for how prosecutors could do their jobs differently. I would be more focused on the way that judges do their jobs. And I would like to let you know that when this first, um, transpired in May, we looked into it. We actually, as part of our statement published on our website, the entire audio of the full sentencing hearing, so that people could hear firsthand, uh, everything that transpired that day for that defendant's case. Uh, since that time, the, the Judicial Council had a conversation about it. The Chief Justice agreed to speak with, uh, the judge and did so and communicated back to, uh, the speaker of the house and the minority leader in the house. And then we convened a full session of training for all district court judges in the state in September about being more conscientious about the choice of words that we employ, the way in which those words can affect victims, and the way in which those can affect people's understanding of what goes on in the judiciary. And that was a training that happened up in Midway. Uh, as I say again, in September of last year, we tried to be responsive to this. So I, I hope that's helpful on the judicial component of it.

Okay. But there's, there's been no communication with the prosecution, and that's not a normal, it has to be outside of the norm to have that conversation with prosecutors.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That would be outside the norm for us to have those conversations with prosecutors. I will say that these types of cases are heinous, and these types of cases get resolved in this very same way in courts all around the state. Most of the time, Like every, like today, every day, there's probably somebody entering a plea to a second degree felony to something that would be a first degree felony. Mm-hmm. Um, the sentencing guidelines that you all are adopting this particular session come with, uh, legislation in house bill 2 74 that the speaker very thoughtfully has run that will require the sentencing commission to take a, a hard look at some of these things and make sure that those guidelines are reflective of the nature of the underlying offense. And so there's change there as well. And that will trickle down to every single judge in the state. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank Mr. Chair. Uh, Mr. Drexel, thanks for being here today. Uh, the question I have for you, you, you mentioned the, uh, prosecutor, and I've heard this before. Um, do you, are you aware whether or not, uh, the bar has taken any action against this prosecutor? Uh, I'm just interested to know.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not aware of any action that's been taken at all, uh, outside of the concern with the judge's role in this.

Can you speculate on why that would not be, uh, if this, if this is a troubled, uh, if attorney, why isn't the bar fulfilling his function and censoring him for his bad behavior? That my friend is a concern to me. Very much so. And, and I just, I don't understand it as well as you do 'cause you're in that world, but I just wonder why they have not done something.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. I hesitate to speculate. Uh, speculation gets people in trouble, I think. But I would say that part of it is because there's nothing really out of the ordinary with what the prosecutor did in resolving this case with this defendant. And, and as a result, I don't know that there's something necessarily sanction worthy for the underlying conduct. The censure that's considered here today, though, focuses solely on the judge's component or role in this without looking at the other circumstances that created the total environment for, for this to happen the way that it did. Uh, I hope that's helpful. Thank You.

You, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Committee members.

Um, I think in light of the comments that we heard, I, I'd like to put forth an amendment. Okay.

Yeah. So let me tell you quickly what it would be. It would be to remove lines, um, 32 through 35, line on line 40 after the comma

Yeah. Starting, like get rid of, yeah. After the word privilege. Mm-hmm. Um, remove the rest of that, whereas through 41 indicating this opportunity, consider a lighter sentence. Okay. And then lines 66 through 68.

Yeah, I, um, as we listen to comments today, um, I can appreciate trying to, um, differentiate the conduct of the judge specifically with, um, with some of the other factors related to the case. And so, in my mind, this still goes, um, it's clear that we were not okay with the conduct of the judge and, um, so, but maybe takes out some of the other things in the bill that might be a distraction from what we want to talk about, which is the conduct of the judge. So that, that would be my motion.

Um, I'm looking over the, those sections right now. Um, I, I, I will, I will say, um, to just kind of bring this into, um, full perspective here is the reason why the prosecutor is not listed here, and I think this is relevant to many of us here, is there is a, there is a component for a prosecutor when it comes to what is possible. What can you do? You may have a lot of charges, you may have a heinous crime, but the, the matter comes down to what can you prove in court? What resources do you have available, um, to prosecute these cases? And they make those decisions, um, on their own. Um, and I think that that, um, that coming back and saying that because he didn't prosecute, for example, particular crimes, um, and therefore considering that a, um, something that needs to be, um, uh, included in this resolution, I, I think oversteps kind of what the role of this resolution is targeting. And it's also not looking at the outcome of this case. In fact, the, the sentence itself is less of a component of this case than it is the opportunity. One of the most difficult things we have with judges is, is that they, they get a, a tremendous amount of flexibility, and we give them that, and then we want them to have that when it comes to determining, um, a lot of portions of our criminal justice system. And it's, it's unique opportunity for us to sometimes reach into the mind and understand the motive behind a judge when they make these decisions. When we set as a legislature, discretionary boundaries, and we say, here's the range, it can go all the way down from here all the way up to here. And that could be a pretty wide range. The question becomes, when a judge makes a decision, what measuring stick is he using to determine whether or not I should be on the low end, or should I be on the high end? Should I be right in the middle? And in this particular case, with this particular judge, he was able to verbalize and narrate a little bit of his thinking. He made statements as to the defendant's privilege in his background, growing up in a wealthier neighborhood, and having more access to services as though that that would somehow be the determining factor in whether or not he should receive a lower sentence. Or at the same time when he looked at the child sexual abuse material saying that he'd seen worse, as though that may have also been a factor in determining whether or not he should receive on the lighter end, the higher end, or right down the middle. It's a rare opportunity to kind of see into the mind of a judge. And yes, I think that everyone agrees that those statements were inappropriate, even the courts. Um, the question is, is what, what are we, what is the outcome of this? Is, is is not necessarily the sentence itself. There's some questions on whether or not the, the prosecutor did something wrong, whether the courts did something wrong, whether the defendant, uh, or there counsel did something wrong. Whether our guidelines are wrong, we can make changes and adjustments to those, these cases can be appealed. There's, there's lots of it that can go in through the normal process. What we're looking at here is a judge that has incredible discretion and using that discretion, he made statements that seemed to be out of touch with the entirety of Utah values. And what we're saying here is that he should be held accountable for those. If the courts haven't done that, then we should make it known to the people. 'cause at some point, he'll be up for retention and the people will have a decision to make whether or not to retain this judge or not. And that for the most part, most people wanna know when they're thinking about a judge for retention, how do they think under these circumstances, how do they apply the law, um, and what is the measuring stick, the ruler that they're using? So I, I'm not opposed to the amendment changes if it helps us get, um, what we're seeking to do here. Um, but again, I am just trying to digest them. And I would say that we have negotiated this language pretty closely with, uh, the Minority Caucus and with other individuals to ensure that we have language

Thank you. And, and I appreciate much of, um, your comments. I I think that we really are trying to get to the, the thing that is most objectionable, right? And, and, um, I think this resolution does a really good job of, of pointing, pointing to the language used to, um, even I would say even with these lines removed, I think it's clear for the public to understand what our concern is, um, in how this, this proceeded. And, and, and we want, um, we want confidence in our judiciary. We want confidence in our judges. And so when things like this happen, like shining a light on those things so that the public can make good decisions as they're approached with retention opportunities or, um, that they can have good decisions. And I think we can still get at that with this amendment, but I, I think it, it does focus us on the thing that, um, we'd like to focus on. So

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we pass out favorably HR eight as amended with favorable recommendation.

Yeah, I'm, I really do appreciate the discussion today. I appreciate, um, the, the, the back and forth on some of this that we're clearly trying to make sure that this is done right. It's not something we take lightly in the legislature. It very rarely happens, uh, but something I believe did need to happen. So that's why I'm supportive of this.

Thank you. I'm, I'm gonna speak in favor of the motion. Um, one of the things that I, frankly, that my questions were hinting at earlier, um, the courts come to us on a fairly regular basis, um, which really are the, it's a separate branch. Supreme Court has the authority to regulate us, to regulate the entire judiciary, right? They've handed that off to the Bar Association. The Bar Association hasn't spoken today. Uh, they're not here. I don't know. Uh, it's theoretically we've given them since like 1934, the authority to regulate every attorney in the state of Utah and every act that anyone takes. But we just don't know. They haven't followed through on any of this. So seemingly they're cool with it. Uh, I think I have seen some messages that, of condemnation for us for even having the conversation, but somewhere in there, we've got a prosecutor that's not doing their job. We've got, uh, maybe some sentencing guidelines that are incorrect, largely developed by our attorneys. Uh, I don't know what else to do with that from this standpoint. We can say, yeah, this shouldn't have happened here. Let's, you know, move forward. But at the end of the day, like the court itself has granted the bar the authority to regulate all of this. So handing it off to the bar, yeah, we could do that. We don't wanna speak for the bar, but the bar is you, they have no authority outside of you, outside of the courts. The Supreme Court is the regulatory body. So if there's really nothing wrong and this is just normal, then, then we'd have a different kind of a problem. I'd speak in favor, obviously, of the motion. Um, I hope that we can, you know, move this forward, but I think this is another view of the court that I'd rather not see. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Chair.

Thank you committee. And I appreciate this good conversation, and I appreciate the changes actually that were coming out of this committee now that I've had a chance to really digest that fully. Um, I can appreciate that as well. And I will say for the record too, I think we have some really fantastic and marvelous judges in the state. Um, I very much appreciate the judiciary and the work that they've done. Um, I appreciate the work that they've done with us in negotiating on some of the judicial bills that have come through the session as well. And I will just say also that, um, in, in most cases that I've seen in my experience that, um, these types of, of shining lights on problems and, and bringing accountability when people make mistakes, they don't make our system worse. They make 'em better. And I think that the goal here is to identify and clarify what is right and what is wrong in these situations, clearly for the public. Make that available to them, allow the people to decide. That's the pur purpose and point of our retention elections. But also to provide some feedback to the courts, as has been discussed here, that we want more clarity, we want more, uh, public or public, um, view when there are problems and when that can get cleared up and cleaned up internally to let us know. Um, I think Representative Wilcox made a good point. They control a lot of the disciplinary process behind the scenes, and the more public that is, the more confidence the public will have in that process. So I appreciate this opportunity and thank you for considering the resolution.

Madam Reading Clerk HR eight resolution, admonishing and sensory censoring. Judge Dom Don m Torgerson by Representative MacPherson.

Thank you Mr. Speaker colleagues. Um, last May Judge, uh, Torgerson presided over the sentencing of an individual. He is 22 years old. He pled guilty to two felony counts of child exploit, uh, sexual exploitation. Perfect. And during that hearing, he made many comments that were wildly widely reported and I find very troubling. And in fact, uh, most of the public found very troubling as well. First, after viewing two of the videos that depicted young children, um, being raped and sexually abused, he made a comment that he had seen worse. This is just flat out unacceptable for any of our judges, for any of our public officials. And then when it came to justifying a lighter sentence, sentences that was lighter than what the pre-sentence investigation reported, recommended, he made several statements alluding to the defendant's privilege. These, these statements are kind of a situation where we need to understand the judges are given an incredible amount of, um, flexibility when it comes to their, their role in our government. They have a lot of discretion and there is a opportunity at times for the public, uh, when it comes to retention elections where the public wants to know when they're considering a judge. If that judge, um, is using that discretion in a way that is both appropriate and is in touch with Utah's values. And in this situation, we got to look into the mind of a judge who narrated some of his considerations in making these, uh, decisions. What's more important to me though, having served in, um, in a, uh, a board that does oversight for law enforcement for the last 12 years, we have a lot of public, uh, employees in law enforcement that are good people. They're good officers, and they make mistakes. And when they do, they own up to those mistakes, they apologize, and they typically have to pay a price for those mistakes. Those, um, end up being things that go on their records. Sometimes they're reprimanded, sometimes they lose their jobs. In this instance, we have a judge that also made potentially a mistake. Maybe he said something that was inappropriate. I think we all agree the courts, everyone has agreed that these statements were inappropriate, but there has been no accountability. This judge has not publicly taken ownership of these statements or walked them back publicly. There's been no apology for these reasons and these purposes. I think it's important for us to use the power that is within the legislature to issue a censure, um, to call out these, these actions that were taken, these, these statements that were made and the lack of accountability so we can make public, um, and, and shine a light on these to those that will have an opportunity to make that decision in a few years when it comes up for retention, that they can then judge for themselves whether or not those statements are in line with Utah values. And if that is the type of, uh, judge we like to keep on the bench, that is entirely their, uh, responsibility as voters, um, that's entitled to them under the Constitution. But is our part of our role is this ability to file Accenture to make that more public so that they can be aware. Mr. Speaker, I open it up to any, uh, questions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this resolution. It's, it's a difficult time when the legislature needs to stand and needs to take action. But when, when a judge acts in a way that undermines public confidence and when there's a court rule that requires judges to quote, promote public confidence in the Independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary end quote. And when a judge acts outside of that internal rule in the courts, it's incumbent on the legislature to take action, to speak out. Uh, if, if there was a public apology, if there was any ownership at all for the actions, um, of this judge, I don't think we'd be standing here today. I I just urge the body's support for some of the most inappropriate comments and insensitive comments that were made over the bench in Utah as we make this censure public, we are not cing the entire judiciary. We are cing specific actions and the public can then have the knowledge and act on that in the future as the good sponsor said. So I urge my colleagues support so this resolution.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Uh, I rise in opposition to this censure. Um, I'm worried about process. This body rarely censure people. Uh, in recent memory, this body did censure someone, but there were a public official. This is a political body. It's not designed for trial or punishment. We have professional tribunals for that. I think it's very different when we take disciplinary action against a government employee. Uh, when we take disciplinary action against a public employee, we take matters into our own hands. It's important to weigh factors that are relevant and discipline. What I want to know here, and what I hear echoed from my colleagues across the aisle that support this resolution is that they haven't heard from Judge Torgeson. My concern is the same. I want context. Uh, as a defense attorney, I've represented people in disciplinary tribunals. I've also as a professional, sat in employment disciplinary tribunals and there's process. Uh, you first reach out to the person, see if they admit or deny to the content, see if they have anything to add, anything their legal team wants to add. Is there any evidence testimony? You just gather all the facts, figure out whether or not discipline is necessary and if it's necessary, what kind of discipline to level? I'm worried that we haven't heard from Judge Torgeson, this Uintah committee yesterday at a public hearing within 24 hours of right now, right after a weekend. I want to say this went public late last week. I don't know what kind of notice Judge Torgeson actually had or what his legal team actually had, because I think the context is relevant here for censure. The resolution here is very specific in scope. It talks about, uh, words that he used during a sentencing, specifically reference to privilege and reference to, I've seen worse. I want to know what his mindset was when he said that. Otherwise, I don't know how to divine what he meant, whether or not there was malice intended, whether or not he was speaking extemporaneously and misspoke. I want to know the context. The record does reflect that he, he said that this sentence seems appropriate for someone, this level of privilege, something like that. I'm paraphrasing context here matters because I could see how he could be thinking about this. The defendant here had been incarcerated for 112 days, was about to be placed on supervised probation for four years. And the judge was holding 30 years of prison over his head as collateral. If you've been incarcerated for 112 year, uh, days and you have anything worldly at all, you'll probably lose it. Uh, if you have a job, a house, a car payment, uh, in three months, you're gonna lose those. I could see a judge misspeaking when he's taking that and factoring that into consideration. Uh, it's the malice and the intent here that I'm trying to process about whether or not Accenture is appropriate. The other comment I've seen worse is certainly flippant. I don't like it, but once again, I kind of want to know where that came from and why. I don't know much about Judge Torgerson. I've never met him. I do know he is been a judge for a while. I know that he was formerly a defense attorney. If he was a defense attorney like me. You see a lot of things secondarily, a lot of traumatic things secondarily. And when you see a video of trauma, it can trigger a wave of stuff and could lead you to saying something pretty stupid. I've done it myself. Goodness knows, there's probably eight years worth of record for me just stealing in trauma where I said something in court that was untoward or flippant or irresponsible. And I'm sure that someone could find it and they could hold it against me. And I would hope that if that ever happened to me, I'd have process, I'd have the ability to actually make a public statement to articulate why I said what I said. And when I look at stuff like this, I can't help but think there, but for the grace, I go And so I hope this chamber can also afford some grace. We had some context here. I would consider myself joining in the censure, but without knowing exactly what was going on, I simply can't. There's power and weight here. I know the intent here is perhaps to influence a, a, a retention election or encourage Judge Torgeson to resign. In the meantime, what good will a court order signed by Judge Torgeson be a search warrant? Will it carry the power of the state of Utah when the state of Utah itself has ced, Mr. Torgeson, when there are other judges out there that are doing pretty meaningfully bad things, several have been arrested recently, and some have even pled guilty to their crimes, and we haven't censured them, nor should we become a body of chor. We should leave that to the professional organizations that deal with discipline. And that's what I encourage here. That's why I impose this resolution. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the, uh, the good representative that when we look at censure, that this should be something that we take very seriously, that we don't use lightly, and that we use it very rarely and surgically in the cases where it's warranted. Now, I stand in support of the censure today, and it's not about the sentence, um, and, and the decision that the judge made in that case, though, I think there is some, some questions around that. And I, and I believe we have some legislation this year that helps to tighten that, to help give more direction to our judges and these types of cases. But I do take issue with the inappropriate comments that the judge made and the lack of remorse that we've seen. Now, this is not something that happened last week or two weeks ago, or a month ago, but the initial reports of this came out in May of last year. That means we've had more than a half a year for George Torgeson to make any sort of comment, to defend his actions, to apologize for his actions or to give more of the context, uh, that we've heard from other representatives saying that they would like to see in this case. Instead, we've heard silence, no apologies, no remorse, nothing. We held a public hearing yesterday where there was a representative from the courts that came and spoke, but not Judge Torgeson and the rep, the, the comments from the courts were not directed at defending the comments that were made in any respect, but more around the institution of the court and some of the actions that the court has taken, but not defending the comments from Judge Torgeson. Now, I'll tell you, I, I think as many of you ha have felt that the number one question I get when ballots come out in November is, how should I vote on these judges? The public wants more information. They want more transparency. They want to know, um, when situations like this have happened, and often that information doesn't get out there. So again, this is not a, a disciplinary disciplinary action that is gonna go, uh, to effect the decisions that Judge Torgeson is going to make and any cases from now and in the future. But what it is, is information and transparency to the public that in this situation, a judge made inappropriate statements and the public should weigh that when they're making the decision, ultimately whether or not to retain this judge. And for that reason, I support this resolution.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, proto colleagues. I think it's important, uh, to address some of the comments that were raised by my colleague from Salt Lake County. When we talk about timing, those other judges that have committed crimes have been removed from the bench. They're not there anymore. Judge Torgerson is still on the bench. We already had the Judicial Conduct Commission investigate this, and he was met with a gentle private reprimand. But there has to be consequences to this. When we talk about context, if you look, and I've made sure that I've tried to wait till the classes were outta the gallery. If you look at what this video was, it was a young child being grossly sexually abused and raped. There's the context for you and for any judge to try to minimize child sexual abuse, they should be off the bench. Our judicial system serves an important role to protect the innocent and uphold justice without fear or favor or privilege. And among the most vulnerable members of our society are our children, and they rely entirely on adults to defend them, especially our institutions, to safeguard them. And when any member of the judiciary appears to excuse, minimize, or condone child sexual abuse, it is not merely a lapse of judgment. It is a profound betrayal of public trust. We have limited tools in our body to check the judiciary. What should time we need to use? One of those is censorship. We do not take this lightly, but I think it is entirely inappropriate to try and minimize what in fact, the judge said in this horrific case of child sexual abuse material. And I would ask my colleagues to stand with me in condemning this.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also rise, uh, in support of this, uh, motion or, uh, resolution. And I would like to add a little context, uh, to, to this. Since I, uh, myself and the good minority leader came out in a very public way against the comments that were made on this, when that happened, my phone rang, uh, by, uh, all types of, uh, citizens all across the state, mostly outraged, but also by a lot of defense attorneys defending the actions and comments of Judge Torgeson. And you can't defend what was said as the good representative from Herriman mentioned what was in that video, I can't even say on this house floor, but I promise you it was one of the most disgusting acts ever imagined. And for a judge to say afterwards, I've seen worse after that discussion. And, uh, the courts did put out a statement criticizing the media for bringing light to this, criticizing the prosecutor, I've heard the prosecutor should be held responsible for this. I'm sorry to blame, to lay blame at the prosecutor's feet for the comments that the judge made. And this isn't about the sense the sentence itself. I could disagree with the sentence itself, and, and I certainly do. But for people to say, oh, it lies within the sentencing guidelines, sure it does. But also the sentencing guidelines went much further, and the recommendation by AP and P was much stronger. The judge chose not to do that. But that's not what this is about. This is about the comments that was made about privilege, and I've seen worse and, and, and, and I just, I can't imagine being some of the victims out there of sexual abuse, especially child sexual abuse. It's wrong. And for not even an public apology, and I did, I sat, I went and sat down with, uh, the courts over this issue specifically to talk about this issue and asked the courts to, to, to do something about it. There's been ample opportunity for at least a minimum and apology for what was said. But instead, all we hear is excuses and defense come to the, come to, uh, judge Torgeson except for the members of the public. And so to me, that's what's as concerning as the comments itself. Line five in the plea agreement, sentence five, paragraph five, look it up. It says that in there specifically, that each side can argue on behalf of additional incarceration. So this narrative that the prosecutor agreed to, no additional, uh, uh, no additional jail time is not accurate. Go read the line five, paragraph five in the, in the, uh, uh, uh, plea agreement. And again, if that was the case, good defense attorney would've pointed that out in the arguments that the, that the prosecutor agreed to that. But that's not the case, and the defense attorney didn't argue against that. And so I, it's a, it, it's not accurate information that's out there. Again, go read our paragraph five of the sensing agreement. The representatives, I've said things that I'm not happy about or that I regret saying I think we all have. But what comes next is you stand up, you own it, and you apologize. You don't double down, especially on something as serious as this issue. You don't double down and defend the actions because they are indefensible. You cannot defend the actions and the comments made. With that, I appreciate it and urge the body's support. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Bro. Tam, I appreciate this conversation. The chance we had to, um, to bring this in front of the body. I wanna point out a couple of things in my summation here. Um, some of this has been covered a little bit briefly, but just to put some context to it. In this particular case, the statement made after reviewing child sexual abuse material that, that he'd seen worse. I would like if the body would be willing to imagine for yourself that if it was your child in that video and you had to hear a judge say that in open court on the record, how would you feel? Would you feel like that this would be a good judge and that judge would embody the values of the state of Utah? Has that put confidence into the court system to you? I would also say that this happened in May, uh, 20th, 2025. It's almost 10 months ago now. Many numerous complaints were filed at the Judicial Conduct Commission, and those complaints were brought to the judge. They had, they went through their process, he had a chance to, uh, discuss that with the conduct commission. And in August, August 5th, they dismissed all of those complaints with a warning to the judge and stated the behavior was troubling. And that is it. I don't believe that that, um, has resolved in a way that the public is, um, is, is happy with. And I know that this body is not as well. We would like to shine a light on that. This resolution is doing that, making this clear that this is not appropriate for the people that we hold with the highest level of trust in the state of Utah. And with that, thank you, uh, for the consideration.

Clerk Fridays on the house surgery and calendar.