U.S. judge pleads guilty to drug charges

[Ghost in the Machine]

By Bill Rankin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Standing two floors below his former courtroom, Jack Camp on Friday resigned as a federal judge and then pleaded guilty for his conduct in a sex scandal involving drugs, guns and a stripper.

The calamitous fall of the white-haired, bespectacled jurist from a well-known Coweta County family began in March when he hooked up with an exotic dancer at the Goldrush Showbar in Atlanta. She gave him a table dance and her phone number, and then he began paying her for sex and using drugs with her. But by Oct. 1, the stripper had turned government informant and Camp was arrested by FBI agents in a parking lot after helping his lover consummate a drug deal. He spent the weekend in jail.

Less than two months later, Camp, 67, is now a convicted felon awaiting a March 4 sentencing date.

Camp entered his guilty plea before Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan, a Washington judge assigned to the case by Chief Justice John Roberts. Hogan began the hearing by asking “Judge Camp” to come to the podium. He ended it by telling “Mr. Camp” when he would be sentenced.
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/u-s-judge-pleads-747336.html

[malaise]

1. Ah well

Camp was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan and served as chief judge until he took senior status, and a reduced caseload, at the end of 2008. On the bench, Camp could be folksy and charming in one instance and impatient and irritable the next. He insisted that lawyers appearing before him not waste the court's time, particularly when a jury was seated. And the no-nonsense jurist would not hesitate to hand down tough sentences when he thought they were warranted.

"God forbid if you had to be coming before Judge Camp for sentencing," Atlanta defense attorney Bruce Harvey said Friday.

[Ghost in the Machine]

4. Good ol' Republican "Family Values"

"After Hogan accepted the plea and adjourned the hearing, Camp walked to the gallery where family members sat on the first row. He gave his wife a long embrace before exiting the courtroom through a side door."

[NightWatcher]

2. I wonder how much time he gave to 1st time drug and gun offenders

but he'll get some kind of "old white guy" leniency. Everybody else is evil, but he's the first good man who slipped a little?

Throw the Fed Mandates at him for possessing a gun at a drug deal

[Ghost in the Machine]

5. How much you wanna bet he gets the minimum sentence?

15 days of home confinement or probation...

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Can we FINALLY get some laws written

that provide for lengthened sentences for federal officials - ESPECIALLY judges, prosecutors & agents - who betray the public trust by flaunting the very laws they've sworn an oath to uphold? I realize this criminal has no previous record, but I believe it's highly likely that he's used his office as cover for past nefarious activities that no one dared to reveal.

Same goes for state laws that are broken by police officers. Instead of getting a slap on the wrist for crimes that would land a less-affluent or less-connected citizen in prison for a lengthy sentence, I believe cops should be held to a higher standard that actually lengthens their sentence for any given crime. Perhaps that would dissuade some of the more blatant sociopaths from seeking an outlet for their sadistic fantasies by joining the police force in the first place. Come to think of it, those laws probably wouldn't do anything to dissuade the most determined sociopaths, but stricter sentencing laws for cops would go a long way toward curbing corruption among the rest of them.

[Ghost in the Machine]

6. Very good ideas....

I wish we could get something like that implemented... would probably never happen though...