[T]wo female attorneys accused a judge of sexist, degrading and condescending behavior toward women during a hearing on whether he should be given another six-year term.
Judge Samuel Hoar, a Vermont Superior Court judge since 2014, faced the allegations during a public hearing, the first step in a periodic legislative review process. Hoar, a member of the Vermont Bar for more than 30 years, is up for review with his current term ending in 2020.
The two women, including a deputy state’s attorney, testified despite fears of repercussions.
Hoar attended the hearing but made no public comment. Attempts to reach Hoar after the hearing were unsuccessful. A senator called the women’s testimony “disturbing.”
Ashley Hill, deputy state’s attorney in Washington County, was one of the women who testified on Wednesday night in Montpelier.
“I’ve spent a significant amount of the last three days agonizing about the impact that my account would have on my career, and to categorize my feelings tonight as terrified of being here and speaking openly about my experiences would be an understatement,” she said.
“I am here, though, to share those experiences because I care deeply about the legal profession, and because the only thing I’ve wanted to be since I was 5 years old was a trial attorney.”
Allison Wannop, an attorney in the Department of Public Service who worked with Hoar when she was a law clerk, said Hoar routinely treated female law clerks with aggression and condescension, while he treated their male counterparts with respect and decency.
“In the year I was with Judge Hoar, I saw a judicial temperament that I often felt like was outside the bounds of anything else that I saw elsewhere,” Wannop said. “And if it were just about me, I wouldn’t be here.”
She said she saw Hoar explosively yell at litigants and at the women he worked with. Once, when she disagreed with Hoar’s interpretation of a statute, he started yelling at her and shaking a heavy legal book in her face.
“Only — and this most objective thing that I can report — only me and the other female law clerks reported being yelled at aggressively or feeling like we received Judge Hoar’s aggression, whereas I know male law clerks who said they never saw anything close to that,” Wannop said.
“It’s easy for a person to say, ‘this judge did this and they just didn’t like me, whatever,’ and I just wanted to say that I was a neutral person in that courtroom, and I saw it,” Wannop said. “And I really liked and respected Judge Hoar and his commitment to being a judge and wanting to be a great judge, and that was hard.”
Hill said that it wasn’t just law clerks. As a female attorney, she said she experienced behavior similar to that Wannop described. Once, Hoar shushed her, “sh-sh-sh-sh,” while she was representing a party, “and I’m no shrinking violet,” Hill said.
Another time, he cut her off in the middle of questioning a key witness in a juvenile case, saying the state’s cross-examination would not be continuing, “for reasons that were then, and are still now, unclear to me,” Hill said.
During a hearing involving at-risk juveniles, the appearance of a former male colleague of Hoar’s turned the serious hearing into a “good ol’ boys reunion,” Hill said, while every other party in the room was interrupted and dismissed.
Once, Hoar called Hill “too emotional to be a prosecutor” in a public courtroom. Afterward, he came to her to apologize, but when she thanked him and began to say something to the effect of, “It’s very hard as a female attorney here in Vermont,” Hoar interrupted her, saying none of it happened because she was a woman, Hill said.
Both women also spoke about Hoar’s ignorance about his privilege.
Once, Hill said, when a young adult had to be placed at a facility in New York, in an attempt to relate, Hoar mentioned that he had a ski home right nearby the facility. When speaking to a family struggling with substance abuse, Hoar once offered to give a mother a rocking chair to help her bond with her child while nursing, though Hill said it had just come to light that the family was homeless and struggling to maintain sobriety. Wannop remembered yet another time in criminal court when Hoar said something to the effect of, “oh I won’t be able to look at this because I’ll be in Hawaii.”
“These comments underscore the significant reality and privilege gaps between the bench, the bar, and the individuals we serve on a daily basis,” Hill said.
Hill said she observed female criminal defendants get more lenient sentences from Hoar than male defendants for the same conduct. Wannop said that wasn’t something she noticed, though she was only in court about once a month.
“I have to say on behalf of the people of this state, that I felt I had to come forward and just say that I saw this behavior, this judicial temperament, the aggressiveness going towards bias, and I felt like somebody had to come out and say that I saw it and I didn’t think it was OK,” Wannop said.
“I do not believe that Judge Hoar intentionally engaged in these behaviors,” Hill said. “But now that he, and you all, are aware, I hope that we can collaborate on ensuring every judge is presented with adequate support and training to begin to unpack the very significant ways that sexism, power, and privilege permeate our judicial system to its core.”
Sen. Alice Nitka, chair of the Joint Committee on Judicial Retention, said another issue with Judge Hoar came to the panel’s attention separately, involving a complaint about the way Hoar spoke about a particular decision in court. She said that with only an audio recording of the event and no video, the committee found no problems with how he acted in that situation, but that they will certainly be looking into the testimony raised at the public hearing.
“It was compelling testimony that we are going to be reviewing,” Nitka said. “It was disturbing testimony, and we need to review and make a determination as to how to make plan from here.”
Nikta said the next step is for the committee to have a follow-up meeting with the judges, and the panel will vote the same day on their next term. She said they could vote to recommend mentoring or other trainings to judges as well, not just a simple yes or no vote on retention.
The final vote is ultimately decided by the General Assembly. Vermont State Court Administrator Patricia Gabel said judges not receiving retention is very uncommon — since she became court administrator in 2013, there has only been one judge who was not retained.
“The process that we have in Vermont, both to merit recommendations to the judge nomination board and also for giving judges the opportunity every six years to have their records reviewed and to hear comments is a very healthy one,” Gabel said.
“We’re lucky in Vermont to have a process like that, and I’m interested to see how this plays out.”
Colin Meyn contributed reporting.
