An Arizona attorney who was serving as a part-time judge has been removed from the bench after refusing to try drug cases. Marc Victor is a criminal defense attorney who also serves on the legal committee for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). In Arizona, the state Supreme Court issues authority for some attorneys to serve as part-time, unpaid (pro tem delete?) judges.

"I was pretty shocked," Victor told the East Valley (Ariz.) Tribune. "Either you take a certain philosophical position or you can't be a judge."

Victor had written a six-page brief he planned to insert into court records explaining why drug laws conflict with his libertarian beliefs. Upon reading the brief, a clerk notified the chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, who sent Victor packing.

"It's a real chilling kind of a thing for one judge telling another judge what he can say in a minute entry while he's recusing himself," Victor said. "It's another thing if I decided to sit on drug cases and started dismissing them."