Napa County judge faces discipline over ‘unexplainable impulse’

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A state judicial agency has opened disciplinary proceedings against a Napa County judge for swiping a couple of $50 card holders from the San Francisco City Club during a “Judges’ Night” dinner last year.

Superior Court Judge Michael Williams later returned the card holders to the club with a letter of apology, the Commission on Judicial Performance said Wednesday. The letter read, “I have no excuse but that I had a couple of glasses of wine and was not thinking of what I was doing.”

The commission said it soon received a letter from Williams that said he had taken the holders on an “unexplainable impulse” but had returned them. He said he had planned to use them to hold some “joke business cards” that he and a friend had printed 40 years earlier. His conduct violated rules of judicial ethics and could have been charged criminally as petty theft, the commission said.

Williams, a former machinist and Peace Corps volunteer, was appointed to the court by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2012 and elected without opposition to a six-year term in 2014.

He had been an attorney in the county public defender’s office from 1986 to 1996, then served as research attorney and general counsel for the county courts before he became a court commissioner in 2001. He handled traffic-court hearings, family-law matters and similar cases for the next 11 years before becoming a judge.

The commission said Williams attended the City Club dinner, sponsored by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, in March 2016 and took the business card holders from a table as he was leaving. Several weeks later, a lawyer told Williams he had been seen on video taking the holders and suggested that he return them, the commission said. He sent them back the next day.

The commission said it would hold a hearing and decide whether to administer discipline, which could include a private or public reprimand or a suspension. Williams’ lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko