Bradford C. Timbers broke just about every ethics rule written for judges. He was charged by disciplinary authorities for coming to work drunk, attempting to fix a traffic case, screaming profanities in court and patting his secretary on her buttocks.
The troubled Allentown district justice was removed from the bench in 1997, just three years after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court created the Judicial Conduct Board to police the state’s judges. District justices have since been renamed magisterial district judges, but while the title has changed, one thing has remained constant: the state’s minor judiciary is plagued by misconduct.
