I wish the news was about Shane, but it's not. James Paul Peaslee was convicted of murdering his stepfather in Bridgewater in 2018. In small towns, judges and those who make decisions which greatly impact people's lives, are bound to have ties to people who appear in their courts. That doesn't mean they won't rule fairly.
As his testimony moved on, Peaslee said that on the first day of his murder trial, the presiding judge, Justice Harold Stewart II, said that he was related to a key witness for the prosecution.
Will the conflict of interest and carelessness of his lawyers get Peaslee a new trial? If there's enough evidence to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, should he get a new trial? In Texas, a man's lawyer slept during parts of the murder trial!
There was conflict of interest in my case against former Sporting Club Restaurant owners Deb and Ken Martin...also presided over by Justice Harold Stewart II. You can use keywords in the search bar to locate the old blog posts that explains why I filed the lawsuit.
The conflict was this: before Stewart presided over my case, he practiced law in Presque Isle, and so did the defendants' lawyer, Norman Trask. In a letter, Trask recommended Stewart and another attorney to me for mediation; however, because the Maine Human Rights Commission had already reviewed my complaint, I wasn't required to mediate. And, because the defendants showed no interest in settling the matter, I chose not to.
I filed the complaint in Superior Court of Aroostook County in 2013 after the Maine Human Rights Commission investigated and found No Reasonable Grounds (NRG) to believe that discrimination had occurred. They dismiss 95% of complaints they get. Just click on any pdf file of the meeting minutes at their website and scroll down to the end. You'll see that nearly almost all cases end in NRG...that is in favor of the respondent.
Anyway, Justice Hunter had presided over the case, but Stewart became a judge and took it when Justice Hunter retired in 2016. As the deadline to file my request for discovery approached, I was anxious because I had no lawyer and no idea how to do it. Then, the defendants' lawyer sent me discovery requests, which I answered and used as a guide to write mine.
To prove that I received less of the pooled tips than other workers, I needed the paystubs of the co-workers who worked the same shifts I did. I requested that, but defendants failed to provide it. I immediately filed a request for a hearing on the discovery dispute. Then Stewart dismissed my complaint, citing an incorrect deadline for filing the complaint; this was something which Judge Hunter had already addressed in my favor! Stewart then called my request for the hearing "moot."
