Background

Judge Bluff (Superior Court, Yavapai County, Arizona) seems like a nice enough guy. I attended parts of his first ever jury trial at the old court building in Camp Verde and thought he was even-tempered and thoughtful. I watched for a few days, and watched attorneys wrestle with him, one even saying "No offense, nothing personal" when challenging one of Judge Bluff's earlier rulings. To which Judge Bluff quickly responded, "No offense taken." And I believed him.

It's really too bad that jurors are prevented from watching the back and forth here and seeing a lot of truth go by. I guess the courts think we're too stupid and might be biased by seeing too much truth.

I wasn't there to see what instructions he finally gave the jury (part of the debate above), but in the end, the jury got it right and gave the right verdict.

I saw him another time, about a year later, bending over backward for an elderly lady who was late for a hearing due to severe weather that day. (Icy roads.) Technically, Judge Bluff could have found against the lady for a no-show, but he showed mercy that day and worked her matter back into his schedule, asking another party if he could break their hearing for a few minutes to deal with her.

Apparently an avid fisherman (he went to Alaska to fish on one of his vacations), Judge Bluff seems to be an all around good guy, a jovial fellow. And he appears fair.

But appearances can be deceiving. I mean, if a bad guy came at you looking like a bad guy, he'd be easy to spot and you wouldn't elect him as judge. The truest measure of character is what you do when no one is looking. We will show here what Judge Bluff did when no one was looking.

To set the stage, let me ask you a question: If you break a vow—be it a wedding vow or an oath of office —and sell yourself for an unworthy cause, have you not prostituted yourself?

As the evidence will show, this is what Judge Bluff did.

Motive would be payback against a "troublemaker" citizen. (I guess you could say a member of the Tea Party before the Tea Party became popular.) Our citizen reported a colleague of Judge Bluff''s to the Commission on Judicial Conduct. That complaint resulted in that colleague resigning from office.

To add insult to injury, despite the requirement in the Code of Conduct, Judge Bluff failed to report gross misconduct by another colleague, the cheating judge, judge Mary Hamm.

Call it the GOBC in the judiciary.

And if Judge Bluff prostituted himself here, it's probable he's done elsewhere. But only when no one is looking.

Remember that when election time comes around. Don't let the nice guy smile fool you. He's really a devil.