A group of Lawrence residents will renew their effort to unseat Douglas County District Court Judge Paula Martin who sentenced two men accused of raping a 13-year-old girl to 60 days of jail time and probation.

A member of the group said he hoped, if the effort is successful, to put other judges on notice that they are ultimately accountable to the people.

“Maybe if we had been able to take Judge Martin out in 2004, this Judge Dowd in Topeka wouldn’t have been so lax in his sentences of sex criminals,” said Kevin Groenhagen, in reference to Shawnee County District Court Judge Matthew Dowd who was the subject of public protests this week after sentencing a 75-year-old man who had sex with two children under the age of 8 to probation.

In the Lawrence rape case, the sentence imposed by the judge was overturned by an appeals court in 2005.  The court said in its ruling that “no reasonable person” would have departed so drastically from sentencing guidelines. The defendants in the case faced possible 13-year prison sentences.

It was that phrase from the appeals court decision that gave the group its name – Citizens for Reasonable Judges.

“Our feeling that if there are no consequences for these ridiculous sentences, then judges have no incentive to be reasonable in their sentencing decisions,” Groenhagen said.

In Douglas County - as in Johnson, Shawnee and other areas - judges are appointed by the governor but must stand for re-election every four years, in what are called retention elections.

Groenhagen said a 2004 effort to encourage voters not to retain Martin was unsuccessful, but the group’s efforts did cut into voter support for the judge.

“She ended up getting 63 percent of the vote, but in most of these retention elections, judges get about 80 percent,” he said.

He said he believed this year’s effort would be more effective.

“Last time, we didn’t get organized until late September and we had very little money,” he said.

He added that supporters of Martin painted the group as “a bunch of angry housewives who didn’t understand the law. But with the appeals court ruling that basically agreed with us, I don’t think they can call us that again,” he said.

This year, the group is creating a political action committee that will allow it to receive donations. “And with all the focus recently on Kansas judges like Dowd, I think there are a lot of people who are getting fed up.”

Groenhagen said the group consists of a cross-section of citizens.

“Politically, I’m pretty conservative, which is rare in Lawrence, but our group has people of all political persuasions,” he said. “This is not a partisan or conservative thing.”

--Corrected and updated: 4 July 2008 12:00 pm--

Judge Martin was retained by a vote of 63 percent, not 53 percent as previously reported.