A year ago, the Alaska Court System placed DiBenedetto on leave after court staff reported behavior including incidents when the judge used offensive accents to impersonate people from other ethnic groups and kept a courtroom of people waiting while he watched a sports game on TV.

In February, after a lengthy investigation, the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended that DiBenedetto receive a reprimand from the Alaska Supreme Court, which has ultimate authority over discipline for judges. The recommendation stopped short of advising that DiBenedetto face a harsher punishment, such as being removed from the bench.

The Alaska Supreme Court had not yet released a decision on DiBenedetto when he tendered his resignation.

DiBenedetto was scheduled to stand for a judicial retention election this fall. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The commission found that DiBenedetto, Nome’s only judge since 2017, had undermined public trust in his position and broken judicial ethics canon in a pattern of reported behavior that included mocking patterns of speech of Alaska Native people.

The Nome court district serves a region of the state that is about 75% Alaska Native.

While DiBenedetto was on administrative leave — unprecedented for judges being investigated — the state continued paying his full $259,729.08 salary, among the highest in the court system.

In February, the area court administrator for the region said publicly that he was concerned about what he described as flaws in the commission’s investigation and attempts to minimize incidents reported by court staff regarding DiBenedetto’s behavior.

In Nome, the judge’s absence has meant a parade of visiting judges. The court system will continue to provide visiting and pro tem judges to serve Nome until the position is filled, Alaska Court System spokesperson Rebecca Koford said in an email Friday.

Melanie Bahnke, a resident of Nome who formerly served on the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct, said in an email that she was glad DiBenedetto had resigned. Bahnke is the president of Kawerak Inc.

“I do wish the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct and the Alaska Supreme Court had acted swiftly and with moral clarity to send a message that there is no room for racist judges in our systems,” she said. “That is disappointing. But I am happy overall that no further resources will be expended on ousting someone unbecoming of this position of authority.”

Bahnke has pointed out that the community of Nome already bears a painful history with law enforcement and the judicial system, including the 2003 murder of a Nome teenager by a local law enforcement officer, high rates of missing and murdered Indigenous people, and the city’s settlement of a lawsuit that revealed a huge backlog of unexamined reports of sexual assault.

The Alaska Supreme Court censured the community’s last full-time judge before DiBenedetto, Timothy Dooley, for making comments such as, “Has anything good ever come out of drinking other than sex with a pretty girl?” while on the bench.

The Alaska Judicial Council should take up nominations for the next Nome Superior Court judge at its August meeting, executive director Susanne DiPietro said.

“I hope that our next judge is more deserving of the authority and respect that comes with the position,” Bahnke wrote.

Source: ADN