BRISTOW, OKLAHOLMA – A judge said Friday he was amenable to shortening the prison sentence of a former judge who has been serving a 4-year sentence for exposing himself while presiding over court cases.
While taking no immediate action, Judge C. Allen McCall said he was “receptive to sentence modification” for former Creek County Judge Donald Thompson.
The nine months Thompson has served so far has been “some of the hardest time a prisoner could do in Oklahoma,” Tulsa attorney Clark Brewster said, arguing that Thompson has been dealt a harsher punishment than others convicted of similar first-time offenses.
Brewster cited dozens of cases in the past several years detailing lighter punishments, including suspended or one-year sentences, for similar convictions.
He also submitted letters from local officials, including a judge, Creek County attorneys and a bank executive, and the foreman of the jury that convicted Thompson saying he had served enough time.
“We don’t ask for any special treatment now, we just ask for fair and comparable treatment to other defendants,” Brewster said.
District Attorney Richard Smothermon said nearly all the sentences Brewster cited in legal filings were the result of a guilty plea prior to trial and that Thompson was offered a plea deal but turned it down.
“He knew if he committed a crime as a judge, things were going to be a little harder for him in the Department of Corrections,” Smothermon said.
Smothermon also said Thompson was written up while in jail for having chewing tobacco, a further example that Thompson didn’t think the rules applied to him.
He also wanted to play a tape of a sexually explicit telephone conversation Thompson had with another woman while in jail as proof that he had not changed his behavior.
Later, Thompson took the stand and personally addressed the judge, asking that he modify the sentence to time served.
“Unless you want me incarcerated to just be incarcerated there’s no further purpose to be incarcerated,” he said.
Looking thinner and dressed in a powder-blue dress shirt and dark slacks, Thompson told the judge he wanted to support his family if he got out because he had lost his retirement and insurance benefits. Family and friends filled nearly half the courtroom in support of Thompson.
McCall said he would finish reading the letters of support and the case file, and granted Thompson a brief visit with family members after the hearing.
Thompson, who served as a state legislator and spent almost 23 years on the bench before he retired in 2004, was convicted in June of four counts of indecent exposure. Prosecutors said Thompson used a device called a penis pump during four trials between 2002 and 2003.
Thompson’s former court reporter testified during his trial last summer that she saw Thompson expose himself during trials at least 15 times between 2001 and 2003.
Thompson, a married father of three grown children, testified that the penis pump was given to him as a joke by a longtime hunting and fishing buddy, but denied ever using it during trials.
Thompson was sentenced in August to four consecutive one-year prison terms and fined $40,000. He completed the first year and is due a parole hearing next month on the second year of his sentence.
Since being sentenced, Thompson has been locked down 23 hours a day in his cell and has been primarily housed in county jails. At one point, Thompson’s floormates included men with multiple murder and rape convictions, Brewster said.
Because of his status as a district judge, Thompson is being held in protective custody.
Courtesy Associated Press via SapulpaDailyHerald.com
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