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Russ West’s “Other views” column of April 6, 2024, failed to provide a fact-based opinion as to why he endorses Jared Boyd for judge. He does not offer a single virtue of Mr. Boyd. Rather, he simply attacked Judge Wes Williams and based his claim that Williams cannot hear a full caseload on Judicial Department statistics he manipulated to fit his agenda.

Mr. West ignored thousands of cases Judge Williams handles — because, West said, “in my opinion” they require only a “brief hearing.” Judge Williams will address this and other matters in his own response.

I will address two issues. Mr. West falsely claimed the people who submitted letters to the editor in support of Judge Williams only did so because Williams is “friendly and a good politician.” But these people never characterized Judge Williams as a politician. Rather, they praised Williams for his judicial demeanor, love of the law and strong work ethic. Many wrote their letters because of their positive experiences with Judge Williams in court. In contrast, Mr. West, prior to disparaging Judge Williams, never observed Judge Williams holding court.

Second, I helped get Senate Bill 807 passed with support from Republicans and Democrats, including our representative, Bobby Levy, and Sen. Bill Hansell. Fifty-five retired judges from around the state and several retired district attorneys testified in support of the bill because of the misuse by some district attorneys of ORS 14.260, the statute allowing lawyers to remove judges. Mr. West gathered a handful of judges, including himself, to try to block the bill. Our local district attorneys opposed the bill. The Oregon Legislature rejected their efforts.

I can only conclude Mr. West’s opposition to this reasonable bill was to prevent Judge Williams from having the ability to challenge the local district attorney’s removal of him from criminal cases. I am confident that should Judge Williams need to challenge the removal after the election — after having been elected twice by the citizens of Union and Wallowa counties — he will prevail.

Jennifer Williams

Retired attorney and wife of Judge Wes Williams

La Grande

The East Oregonian will run endorsement letters of no more than 400 words. We institute a deadline for letters to the editor so we can be fair with all the letters we receive and allow for responses before Election Day, if necessary. We run local letters of endorsement on a first-come, first-served basis. Please submit your endorsement letters to the editor by 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 30. You can email them to editor@eastoregonian.com or mail them to the East Oregonian, Attn.: Andrew Cutler, P.O. Box 1089, Pendleton, OR 97801. We will publish our last letters on Saturday, May 18. Any letters received after the April 30 deadline will not be published in print or online.