Alaska Court System fires magistrate judge who wrote public letter criticizing Republican Party

The Alaska Court System fired the state’s longest-serving magistrate judge on Wednesday after he wrote a letter to the editor saying that the Republican Party “is actively trying to steer the U.S. into an authoritarian kleptocracy.”

The letter, published in December, was one of four that Seward magistrate George Peck has written to the Daily News in criticism of former President Donald Trump, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the Republican Party since 2019.

Peck did not state his judicial position in those letters, and no complaints against Peck have been filed in the past year, but Peck’s immediate supervisor, Anchorage Superior Court Judge William Morse, ordered the court system’s human resources department to investigate.

After the investigation, Morse said in a formal decision on Wednesday that Peck’s letter violated Alaska’s code of judicial conduct.

Read more: https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2022/01/07/alaska-court-system-fires-magistrate-judge-who-wrote-public-letter-criticizing-republican-party/
(Anchorage Daily News)