A Trinity County judge who arraigned a close family friend on an assault with a deadly weapon charge — and then hugged her in the jury box — was publicly admonished Monday by the Commission on Judicial Performance.
Judge Anthony Edwards was also chastised for taking a clerk and a deputy marshal on an extended lunch outing on his plane. The trip made Edwards late for an afternoon calendar and left a branch courthouse closed during business hours. When the court’s executive officer questioned the clerk about her tardiness, Edwards blasted the executive in a letter and ordered her to pay the clerk overtime for the time they spent discussing the matter.
