NATION/WORLD
Friday, April 22, 2016
JUDGE: Ballard said about 50-60
percent of his practice now is divorce
Continued from 1A
Ballard, 51, has been
practicing law for 19
years in Hermiston. He
is twice divorced and has
a 25-year-old daughter
attending
Columbia
University, New York City.
Campaign ¿nance ¿lings
show he put $10,000 of his
own money into the race for
the bench.
Lieuallen turns 48 this
summer and has been an
attorney since 1999. He and
his wife married in 2001
and have two boys and two
girls. The family strode
down Main Street in Adams
last Saturday in the town’s
annual parade.
He was the lone candidate
there and even pulled a red
wagon Àying election signs.
Ballard also is working to
drum up votes. His election
sign towers over Sunset
Elementary School in Herm-
iston. He spoke earlier this
week about the campaign.
Ballard said about 50-60
percent of his practice now
is divorce, most of the rest
is criminal and he throws in
some civil cases to boot. And
for several years he has been
the backup judge in the city
court in Hermiston.
“I think I would probably
be more effective as a judge
in this stage in my life,” he
said.
The work of a trial
attorney has its rewards and
downsides, he said. Paying
clients expect him to be
available 24/7, every day
of the year, and by his own
choice he has not taken a
week’s vacation since at least
2006. A judge’s workload is
“more condensed,” he said,
but winning would mean a
“hefty pay cut.”
The position pays about
$124,500 a year, and the term
is for six years.
A judge is akin to a base-
ball umpire, Ballard said,
determining if a ball is fair
or foul. Courtrooms are ¿lled
with close calls, he said, and
his experience will help him
to make the right decisions.
“You would be hard
pressed to ¿nd a facts
scenario I’ve not run into,”
he said. “And my BS meter
is probably set fairly high.”
Lieuallen was a deputy
district attorney in Prineville,
worked in public defense in
Umatilla County and in 2004
joined the Milton-Freewater
¿rm of Monahan, Grove
& Tucker, where he made
partner three years later. A
former high school cham-
pion wrestler, he said he is
competitive and aspires to be
at the top of his profession.
Thus the race for the
bench, he said, where the key
to success is exemplifying a
judicial temperament.
“You have to be ¿rm and
fair,” he said, “but you also
have to be willing to listen
and be unbiased. I think
some of his (Ballard’s) stuff
can be sharp.”
So sharp the Oregon State
Bar Disciplinary Board in
2013 put Ballard on trial
to consider if he violated a
restraining order and broke
the law while representing a
client in a divorce.
The East Oregonian
obtained a copy of the
three-person trial panel’s
8-page opinion. The panel
consisted of Bend attorneys
Carl W. Hopp Jr. and Ronald
L. Roome, both of Bend,
and retired dentist John G.
McBee of Pendleton.
Ballard’s client owned a
Ford F-150 pickup, which
the client’s wife used.
Ballard ordered his assistant
to take the pickup at dawn
on June 29, 2010 and keep it
out of view. Marylu Lopez,
the wife in the case, reported
she ¿led a complaint with the
Bar.
Ballard said that led to an
inquiry, and the Bar cleared
him. Then came an appeal,
and he prevailed again. But
Lopez and Aaron Guevara,
her attorney in the divorce
case, pushed for the trial
panel.
The trial was Oct. 31
and Nov. 1, 2013, in Herm-
iston. Ballard, Guevara and
others testi¿ed, including
Hermiston police Capt.
Daryl Johnson. The panel
concluded Ballard did not
violate the restraining order
when he took the pickup.
But the opinion also stated
the panel “unanimously
disapproves of Ballard’s
conduct,” found his “actions
were overzealous,” and his
claim he owed no duty to the
wife “rang hollow.”
He left Lopez without
a vehicle for an extended
period of time, according to
the panel, and “caused actual
harm to the wife, to the
couple’s daughter, and to the
perception of lawyers held
by the community at large.”
The panel also found it
“offensive” for Ballard, an
attorney and of¿cer of the
court, to “surreptitiously”
pull off the scheme.
“An attorney snatching
and holding the opposing
party’s sole means of trans-
portation reÀects poorly on
all lawyers,” the panel stated.
“What if there had been
a breach of the peace and
someone was hurt? What if
wife’s attorney, following
Ballard’s example, took the
vehicle back? Where do
personal, self-help style,
snatch and grab activities by
BRIEFLY
Firms that paid for Clinton speeches
have U.S. government interests
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s not just Wall Street banks.
Most companies and groups that paid Democratic presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton to speak between 2013 and 2015
have lobbied federal agencies in recent years, and more than
one-third are government contractors, an Associated Press
review has found. Their interests are sprawling and would
follow Clinton to the White House should she win election.
The AP’s review of federal records, regulatory ¿lings and
correspondence showed that almost all the 82 corporations,
trade associations and other groups that paid for or sponsored
Clinton’s speeches have actively sought to sway the
government — lobbying, bidding for contracts, commenting on
federal policy and in some cases contacting State Department
of¿cials or Clinton herself.
Presidents are not generally bound by many of the ethics
and conÀict-of-interest regulations that apply to non-elected
e[ecutive branch of¿cials, although they are subject to laws
covering related conduct, such as bribery and illegal gratuities.
Clinton’s 94 paid appearances over two years on the speech
circuit leave her open to scrutiny over decisions she would
make in the White House or inÀuence that may affect the
interests of her speech sponsors.
Rival presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders and
Republican critics have mocked Clinton over her closed-door
talks to banks and investment ¿rms, saying she is too closely
aligned to Wall Street to curb its abuses. Sanders average of
about $225,000 for each speech and goaded her for declining to
release transcripts.
attorneys end?”
McBee as “representative
of the conscience and norms
of the community,” found
Ballard was wrong and broke
the law.
Ballard said he anticipated
this would come up during
the campaign. He said he hits
hard as an attorney, and trial
panel “didn’t like me one
bit,” but he was protecting
his client in that situation.
Ballard said his client
owned the pickup and had
a report of people drinking
and driving in it. If someone
crashed it while drunk,
Ballard said, his client would
have been liable.
“I made a judgment call
to have the truck picked up at
dawn,” he said, and asserted
there was a receipt in the
pickup for “$70 or $80”
worth of alcohol and “beer
bottles all over it.”
He also said he called
Hermiston police and said
he took the pickup so they
would know it was not
stolen.
Good, bad or otherwise,
he said that’s what happened.
But it was by the book, and
that is how he would be as
judge.
“I’m fairly balanced and
very procedural,” he said,
and he suspected his rulings
“will be a little stronger than
my opponent’s.”
Lieuallen said he knew of
the trial panel but he would
not make it a campaign
issue. He said he was talking
about his experience and
community
involvement,
including as a member of
the Milton-Freewater Rotary
Club and president of the
Pendleton youth wrestling
club. He said he plans to
spend about $5,000 on
mailings to voters in Morrow
County and the west side of
Umatilla County.
Lieuallen campaigned in
2012 against sitting Circuit
Judge Lynn Hampton and
lost by about 55 percent to
45 percent.
And this week the Bar
released the results of its
judicial preference poll, in
which local lawyers cast their
votes for judge candidates.
Lieuallen won with 30 votes
while Ballard received 18.
But the real verdict in
the May election rests with
the voters of Umatilla and
Morrow counties.
———
George Plaven contrib-
uted to this story. Contact
Phil Wright at pwright@
eastoregonian.com
or
541-966-0833.
East Oregonian
Tubman on the $20 a
deeply symbolic move
NEW YORK (AP) —
Growing up in Oklahoma,
Becky Hobbs noticed some
of her Cherokee elders
wouldn’t even touch a
$20 bill because they so
despised Andrew Jackson.
To this day, the 66-year-old
songwriter pokes him in the
face whenever she gets one.
For Hobbs and many
other Native Americans, the
U.S. Treasury’s decision to
replace Jackson’s portrait
with Harriet Tubman’s is a
hugely meaningful change.
A slave-owning presi-
dent who forced Cherokees
and many other Indian
nations on deadly marches
out of their southern home-
lands, being succeeded by
an African-American aboli-
tionist who risked her life to
free others? Unprecedented.
“We’re just thrilled that
Andrew Jackson has had
a removal of his own,”
said Hobbs. “The constant
reminder
of
Andrew
Jackson being glori¿ed is
sad and sickening to our
people.”
The Obama administra-
tion’s decision is ground-
breaking in many ways —
there hasn’t been a woman
on paper money in over a
century, and there’s never
been an African-American.
Change also is coming
to other bills: The histo-
ry-making appearances of
Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and opera singer Marian
Anderson at the Lincoln
Memorial will be displayed
on the back of the $5 bill,
and suffragettes marching
for the right of women to
vote will appear on the
steps of the U.S. Treasury,
on the back of the $10 bill.
But Tubman’s arrival is
the one many people have
been hoping for, much
to the dismay of Jackson
supporters, and it comes
amid ongoing, emotional
debates about other symbols
Americans choose to honor,
like the Confederate Àags
and statues being removed
from public life in places
across the South.
“Every time you pick up
that $20 bill, it’s a reminder
that we can’t ignore or
pretend like we didn’t have
400 years of slavery,” said
Amrita Myers, a historian
at Indiana University who
focuses on 19th century
black women.
“Not only is this going to
be the ¿rst African-Amer-
AP Photo/Carolyn Thompson, File
In this 2015 file photo, a woman holds a sign
supporting Harriet Tubman for the $20 bill during a
town hall meeting at the Women’s Rights National
Historical Park in Seneca Falls, N.Y.
ican historical ¿gure on
U.S. currency, but it’s a
woman speci¿cally from
the era of slavery,” Myers
explained. “We still live
in a nation that doesn’t
like to acknowledge its
history of racial and gender
oppression. Black women
experience those things
simultaneously.”
Making the change
on currency is especially
powerful,
said
Suzan
Shown Harjo, president of
the Morning Star Institute, a
Native rights organization.
“A country usually puts
forward its best when it
shows the world the people
on a stamp or on money,”
said Harjo, who is both
Cheyenne and Muskogee.
“They’re really saying,
‘this is what we want you to
think of us ... these are our
best people.”’
Compared to all his
predecessors, Jackson, who
served from 1828-1836,
arrived at the White House
as a self-made everyman
whose populist message
resonated with a country
still solidifying its democ-
racy a half-century after
declaring
independence.
But for Native Americans,
Jackson stands for genocide
— the polar opposite of a
unifying ¿gure.
“He’s not the poster boy
for America, and it’s good
to see it changed,” said Bill
John Baker, principal chief
of the Cherokee Nation.
Baker points out that
a fourth of the Cherokees
died after Jackson and his
troops forced them onto
what became known as the
Trail of Tears. Other tribes
that were forced to move to
reservations in Oklahoma
and beyond include the
Seminoles,
Chickasaw,
Choctaw and Muscogee-
Creek.
Many Americans still
celebrate Jackson for his
victory over the British
during the War of 1812 and
for his life as an everyman
who reached the pinnacle of
power.
GOP presidential front-
runner Donald Trump is
among them — he defended
Jackson on Thursday,
saying replacing him with
Tubman is “pure political
correctness.” He and former
Republican
presidential
candidate Ben Carson
suggested putting Tubman
on the $2 bill instead.
“We
won’t
stop
promoting his legacy,” said
Howard Kittell, president
and CEO of the Andrew
Jackson Foundation, which
operates Jackson’s historic
home, The Hermitage, in
Tennessee.
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Paris climate agreement on track for start
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — As many as 170 countries are
expected to sign the Paris Agreement on climate change Friday
in a symbolic triumph for a landmark deal that once seemed
unlikely but now appears on track to enter into force years
ahead of schedule.
U.N. of¿cials say the signing ceremony Friday will set a
record for international diplomacy: Never before have so many
countries inked an agreement on the ¿rst day of the signing
period.
That could help pave the way for the pact to become
effective long before the original 2020 deadline — possibly this
year— though countries must ¿rst formally approve it through
their domestic procedures.
The U.S. and China, which together account for nearly 40
percent of global emissions, have said they intend to formally
join the agreement this year.
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