For those of you who typically vote to retain every judge on your lengthy ballot, attorney Daniel Foster has a cautionary story — at least if you live in the 18th Judicial District of Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties.

It’s a tale of a judge who last year interpreted an obvious, harmless misunderstanding over a court order as a direct, intolerable affront to her authority and so jailed Foster moments after he’d won a case.

“I was handcuffed in the courtroom in front of three sheriff’s deputies,” Foster told me — “like I was going to make a break for it.” Then he was marched past his incredulous client over to the jail to spend the night — his jailers sparing him only the indignity of an orange jumpsuit.

Arapahoe County Judge Cheryl Rowles-Stokes has every right to insist that attorneys follow instructions. But what she did to Foster over an innocent misstep was so unusual that even the attorney general’s office, which is representing the judge in a civil suit brought by Foster, seemingly can’t bring itself to present a full-throated defense. Its brief essentially admits Rowles-Stokes at least should have held a hearing on the attorney’s alleged contempt before clapping him in cuffs.

Foster’s adventure began when he took on a case of an employee of Aurora Public Schools who was charged with indecent exposure. Foster had to defend the accused on two fronts: a civil case in which a state license was at stake and a criminal case before Rowles-Stokes.

In the civil case, Foster subpoenaed documents from Aurora schools, and later introduced them in the criminal case. That’s when Rowles-Stokes went ballistic. She ordered him to turn them over to the court, and he did so with his paper copies.

Foster says it never occurred to him to delete the electronic file on his personal computer that was sent to him in the civil case. “It would have been legal malpractice to give up my client’s defense while it was still in process,” he observed.

You can argue that Foster should have understood the intent of the judge’s order and deleted the electronic file, but you can’t claim he deliberately defied her. It’s crystal clear from court transcripts that he did not.

After all, it was Foster himself who told the judge he had an electronic file after he’d re-subpoenaed the records, this time for the criminal case, and she offered to return his paper copies. When she bristled at his revelation, he explained, “I was under the assumption, your honor, that you meant my paper files,” adding, “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with the stuff on my hard drive.”

Foster was consistently respectful. And if he’d intentionally flouted the order, he obviously wouldn’t have called the judge’s attention to the fact.

Shortly after the hearing, Rowles-Stokes recused herself from the case. Yet she must have been seething because she had Foster brought before her moments after his client was acquitted some days later in a nearby courtroom and had him transferred to a cell. No warning, no hearing, kaboom.

Rowles-Stokes has been on the bench only since 2012, and she is up for retention this year. And the Commission on Judicial Performance recommended her retention despite the fact that only a third of the attorneys surveyed thought she deserved it.

Voters will probably support her. After all, judges are almost never bounced from the bench without sustained public campaigns against them first. But given her vengeful lack of perspective in Foster’s case, they may live to regret it.

E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.

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