Just two days after a Colorado judge returned to work after serving a disciplinary suspension for threatening his stepson with an AR-15-style rife, the judge lost his temper on the bench and berated attorneys in a case, according to new disciplinary action issued Monday by the Colorado Supreme Court.
The now-former judge, Mark Thompson, became angry with attorneys in a civil case during a November hearing after the lawyers did not follow his instructions for filing particular legal documents, according to the public censure. Thompson then “berated counsel in a tone that was rude, condescending and mocking,” according to the censure.
The judge threatened to hold the attorneys in contempt of court and send them to jail, threatened to report them for professional discipline, and said that although the jury trial could no longer go forward due to the delay, he would nevertheless call in all 80 prospective jurors and have the attorneys personally tell the prospective jurors “how proud they were of themselves for wasting the jury’s time by forcing the jurors to come to court for a trial that counsel was not ready for,” according to the public censure.
Thompson also told the attorneys that if they did not follow his directions exactly, he would have them sent to jail for a “heck of a long time before they saw the light of day,” the censure reads.
In a separate case, Thompson berated two parents who could not agree on a parenting plan, saying that the children should “get as far away from these two parents as they possibly can, which is, God-willing, what they’ll be able to do” as soon as the children graduated high school.
Thompson served as the chief judge in the Fifth Judicial District, which covers Summit, Clear Creek, Eagle and Lake counties, until October 2021, when he was demoted after he was arrested for threatening his stepson with an AR-15-style rifle during an argument in July 2021.
Thompson pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in connection with the threat, and was suspended from his judicial duties for 30 days as punishment. He returned to work on a probationary status in November 2022, but resigned in December 2022.
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