Court denies request to delay trial for suspended Jefferson County judge

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - Suspended Jefferson County Probate Judge Yashiba Blanchard remains set for trial before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary on Dec. 7 after the court denied her request to push the trial back 90 days.

Chief Judge J. William Cole signed the order Wednesday, one day after a hearing on Blanchard’s motion to continue. The order does not explain the court’s reasoning. It does extend the deadline to finish depositions and discovery from Nov. 20 to Dec. 2, five days before trial, and says any further changes will be granted “only upon a showing of good cause.”

The Court of the Judiciary can remove a judge from office, suspend a judge without pay or censure a judge, according to the court’s website.

Blanchard has been suspended since May, when the Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC), which prosecutes these cases, filed a 120-page complaint charging her with seven violations of the Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics. The charges are not criminal. The complaint accuses her of delaying involuntary commitment hearings and improperly removing conservators, among other allegations. Blanchard denies the allegations.

Blanchard’s attorneys filed a motion to push back the trial, writing, “Judge Blanchard cannot receive a fair trial under the current scheduling order.” They argued the schedule leaves too little time to prepare a defense, saying the two sides listed 56 potential witnesses, with only 46 weekdays between the Sept. 18 witness list exchange and the old Nov. 20 deadline.

The defense also said Jefferson County’s attorney directed employees to answer the JIC’s subpoenas “in full without objection” but hired outside attorney Mark White of White Arnold & Dowd to respond to Blanchard’s similar requests. Those requests include the emails of eight county employees. According to the filings, an attorney at White’s firm estimated the requested emails at about 40 gigabytes of data and said the firm would need at least 30 more days to complete its response.

Her attorneys also cited a separate state audit in which, they said, Blanchard has had to justify more than $500,000 in expenditures from the State Archival Fund. And they said the Nov. 27 deadline to resolve the case before trial falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

In its filing opposing the delay, the JIC said Blanchard “continues to receive her full judicial salary” while she is disqualified from acting as a judge, citing the Alabama Constitution. Her attorneys responded that the JIC “weighs Judge Blanchard’s salary against her right to a fair trial and finds the salary the weightier concern.”

The JIC called Blanchard’s reasons for a later trial date “dilatory and contrived” and an attempt to “create a false narrative that this case is being rushed to trial.” The commission said the trial has already been moved once and her current attorneys joined the case Aug. 10. It argued the two sides first exchanged witness lists July 24, and only two names on its amended list were new.

Citing Blanchard’s acknowledgment that her previous attorneys served no discovery requests, the JIC said “any prejudice that Judge Blanchard may suffer as a result of the limited time remaining to conduct discovery is self-inflicted.” It called the subpoena comparison “factually inaccurate and irrelevant,” saying Blanchard’s requests seek far more records. It also said Blanchard “is free to demand alternative dispute resolution at any time prior to the November 27 deadline.”

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