Campaign seeks to remove controversial role-playing magistrate judge on November Ballot

A Kootenai County magistrate judge with numerous reprimands who appeared in court dressed as Darth Vader on Halloween is up for re-election in November. A campaign led by a former litigant of a divorce and custody case he oversaw in 2012 hopes to remove him.

Judge Clark A. Peterson, 57, was appointed to the bench in 2010 and has faced complaints over the years that his fantasy role-playing hobby interfered with his judicial work.

Kootenai County Prosecutor Stanley Mortensen had Peterson removed from all cases involving his office after filing a sexual harassment complaint against the judge last year. Peterson was placed on administrative leave for seven months while the complaint was investigated by the Idaho Judicial Council, which publicly reprimanded Peterson for failing to secure his judicial chambers while changing his clothes.

“All of us in Kootenai County are at risk if we ever have to enter the courthouse,” said Tina Stevens, head of the Families Against Judge Peterson campaign. “We have an out-of-control judge who needs to be voted out.”

Peterson is one of four magistrate judges up for retention election, meaning voters can check “yes” or “no” on whether to retain them in the position. The other judges are Anna Eckhart, James Combo and Destry Randles.

A simple majority is required to retain magistrate judges, County Clerk Jennifer Locke said.

The First Judicial District Magistrates Commission appoints magistrate judges when there are vacancies in North Idaho.

With no opponents, judges usually win retention by large margins. Peterson won previous retention elections by 81% in 2012, 73% in 2016 and 81% in 2020.

Stevens ran another campaign against Peterson in 2016, which she said was derailed by stolen yard signs and a mishap that prevented fliers from being distributed. She decided not to organize one during 2020 because of the pandemic. This year, Stevens said she is in a better position to organize a campaign.

Stevens said she lost her house, tens of thousands of dollars and custody of her two children who are now grown because of how he mishandled her case.

Campaign fliers call Peterson “Demon Lord” in reference to his former avatar: the demon prince Orcus, Lord of the Undead. He posted hundreds of comments on online fantasy message boards while at work, according to a 2013 Spokesman-Review story.

Peterson’s attorney Jim Siebe said the judge is forbidden by judicial canons and rules of professional conduct from commenting on any cases, even nonactive cases.

The county prosecutor’s office filed a sexual harassment complaint against Peterson last year on behalf of a female deputy prosecutor over her objection. She said she believed it was an accident.

According to the complaint, the deputy prosecutor knocked before walking in on Peterson changing into his gym clothes, despite his knowledge that she was on her way to deliver paperwork.

The complaint mentioned that another female co-worker claimed that a similar incident happened to her. In the complaint, supervisors in the prosecutor’s office said Peterson favored attractive female attorneys and defendants.

Siebe denied all allegations in the complaint beyond the judicial council’s finding that he should have secured his office door and said that the prosecutor should not have made the complaint public by filing it in various court cases.

“The information in the public reprimand is what the judicial council concluded,” Siebe said. “It speaks for itself.”

The prosecutor’s office argued in court filings that because they accused Peterson of sexual harassment and because of his other alleged past misconduct, Peterson is biased against the prosecutor’s office and therefore should be disqualified from presiding over cases involving the office.

The judicial council’s investigation also looked into other allegations of misconduct by Peterson. On Halloween, he appeared in court dressed as Darth Vader, walking out from his chambers with Star Wars music playing on his cell phone.

Peterson was publicly reprimanded by the judicial council in 2020 for falsifying vacation time records. He was privately reprimanded in 2015 following the complaints about his gaming.

Peterson founded tabletop game companies Necromancer Games and Legendary Games.