McAlester News-Capital, McAlester, OK

Local News

June 3, 2009

Embattled judge defends his record

By Kandra Wells

A judge who was denounced last week on a national cable television program over a sentence in a child rape case helped establish a local center for child victims of abuse and was a state honoree for his work with children in courts.

“I uphold the law of the state,” District 18 Judge Thomas Bartheld said Monday. “No matter what you do, I would not tolerate a child being traumatized in my courtroom.”

Bartheld was lambasted last week by Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera during a segment of “The O’Reilly Factor,” a Fox News program. “This judge should be thrown off the bench immediately,” O’Reilly said, referring to the judge’s supposed ruling in the David Harold E. Earls rape case.

Last month, Bartheld was honored by the Pittsburg County Child Abuse Response Effort (PC-CARE), which includes an advocacy center where young crime victims can be examined and interviewed in a child-friendly environment. Interviews are recorded on video so a child only has to be interviewed once, and physical exams can be done on site, if necessary, so that young victims don’t have to go to a public clinic or hospital.

Bartheld said the center was established based on work he began more than 10 years ago.

“What they’ve done (at PC-CARE) since then is miraculous and marvelous,” the judge said. “But that PC-CARE unit came about because I called some people together.”

A judge since 1995, Bartheld said he saw the need for the center because of the child abuse cases coming through his courtroom.

“What was happening is kids were getting interviewed by DHS (the state Department of Human Services), then the police, then the medical personnel,” Bartheld said. “It puts the children through more trauma each time.”

The judge was also recognized by the state’s CASA program, Court Appointed Special Advocate. CASA assigns volunteer advocates to represent the children involved in various cases. The advocates might visit with the child in a case at home or school, and then report their findings to a judge, independent of findings by another agency, such as DHS or police.

In 2002, the judge said he was named Judge of the Year for Oklahoma by CASA.

Bartheld also deals with children in his courtroom for divorce and custody cases. One lawyer who was in a courtroom for one of those cases vividly remembers Bartheld.

“I had numerous custody matters in his court, and he was always particularly careful about the rights of children,” said Debra K. Lumpkins, an assistant attorney general with the Consumer Protection Division for the Attorney General of Missouri. “The one time I can remember that I was surprised at his vehemence was when I used the phrase ‘standard visitation.’

“He told me nothing to do with children in his court was treated as standard, and that he did the best he knew for each individual child.”

According to Lumpkins, O’Reilly and Rivera picked the wrong target for their program.

“Judge Bartheld does not deserve it,” she said.

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