Judge Whose Nude Photos Got Posted Online Breaks Her Silence
What this retired judge describes sounds like a total nightmare -- but she survived it, and that's what counts.
Madam Justice A. Lori Douglas
Longtime readers of Above the Law are familiar with Madam Justice Lori Douglas, the (now retired) Canadian judge featured in pornographic pictures that made their way to the web. Back in November 2014, we thought that this tale had come to an end. But now it’s back in the news, due to a very interesting interview that Justice Douglas gave to the Canadian Lawyer.
Much of the article discusses the Canadian Judicial Council, the body that investigated Justice Douglas, and whether its processes need to be reformed. The investigation into Justice Douglas dragged on for more than four years and cost Canadian taxpayers more than $3 million, which suggests that yes, some changes might be in order. It ended in late 2014 with a settlement providing that the Council would drop its investigation and Justice Douglas would resign from the bench in May 2015 (which allowed her to receive retirement benefits based on 10 years of judicial service).
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The operations of the CJC, however, are of less interest to our largely U.S. audience than the human interest side of the story. Here are some highlights from the Canadian Lawyer piece.
What is Justice Douglas up to now?
Nowadays, she’s back to work on a limited basis at King’s former law firm, Petersen King, where she handles family law files. She’s also planning to do some work at the University of Manitoba’s Robson Hall Faculty of Law. “I’m looking forward to some presence at the university,” she says. “I like teaching. I like young people.”
What were the past few years — dominated by scandal, controversy, and a seemingly interminable investigation — like for Justice Douglas?
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“I got more and more depressed. I was stuck in the house. I had nothing,” says Douglas, noting her situation changed her perspective on the idea of house arrest for criminals rather than jail. “Got to tell you, I’ll never criticize that again. It felt like a prison.”
Douglas says she’d experience panic every morning. She relied on friends to help her get through the day. Once [her now-deceased husband Jack] King would leave the house, they’d call. And if she could make it to noon, the panic would go away. Without that support, she says, she would have committed suicide. “I lost my job. I lost my life. I lost my reputation. If it hadn’t been for my son, there would have been little reason to keep on.”
How does Justice Douglas feel about her treatment by the Canadian Judicial Council?
Rather than take her through a disciplinary proceeding, she argues, it should have stuck up for her given that she had done nothing wrong. “But nobody spoke up for me,” she says, suggesting the judicial council was afraid of bad publicity if it didn’t take the issue seriously when the story about the photos and the alleged harassment first hit the headlines. “I think the CJC was afraid of the news,” she says, suggesting the reaction would likely have been different if she had been a man. “If I had been a man whose wife was taking pictures, the CJC would have said, ‘Poor Joe. He’s married to a wing nut.’”
I also can’t help wondering if the reaction would have been different if the scandal had erupted not in 2010 but in, say, 2015 — after the Jennifer Lawrence nude photo hack of summer 2014. Perhaps then Justice Douglas would have been viewed more sympathetically — as a victim of her husband Jack King and his former client Alex Chapman, the two people whose actions brought the photos to light.
What effect did the photos and ensuing controversy have on Justice Douglas’s marriage to Jack King?
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Douglas says she never actually saw the photos herself. “I didn’t know if he had film in the camera,” she says of King. “It was his thing.” While the photos ultimately put great stress on their marriage, she says it had been a great relationship up until then. The pair married when she was about 40 years old after meeting while working at the same law firm. King was very intelligent, she notes, but he could rub people the wrong way. While it had been a happy marriage up until 2003, things began to change at that point.
“He had become odd, strange, difficult,” says Douglas, calling him “super depressed.” As for the photos, she suggests King may have been trying to “inject some sort of excitement into his life.” He went on to post the photos as he attempted to interest Chapman in Douglas, an effort that would land him and his wife in so much trouble.
What was her reaction when she learned of the existence of the pictures online? “Furious,” says Douglas. “All I said was: ‘How could you have done that to me?’ And he had no answer.”
According to Douglas, King would apologize to her almost every day. Eventually, she was able to forgive him. “I knew I would either kill him or I would kick him out,” she says, noting she ended up forgiving him. “I did forgive [him] because I primarily thought it was for my benefit to do so.”
Overall, after this whole ordeal, how is Justice Douglas doing?
“I feel fine,” says Douglas, 59. “I haven’t been so well now for five years.”
Glad to hear. Congratulations to Justice Douglas on finding some peace of mind, and best of luck to her with life beyond the bench.
Behind the headlines: Lori Douglas [Canadian Lawyer]
