Iowa Supreme Court justices grill magistrate over racial slur, comments in sex-abuse case

• An Iowa magistrate who is facing potential sanctions for using offensive language and exhibiting bias in court cases rankled Iowa Supreme Court justices with claims in hearing.
• Magistrate David J. Hanson claimed not to know a phrase he used was a slur.
• Hanson asked the court not to suspend or remove him, saying his court is short-handed.
• The court has yet to issue a ruling, but said it is concerned by Hanson’s conduct and its effect on the public perception of the judicial system.

An Iowa magistrate who questioned in court whether a defendant was a “wetback” is now facing potential sanctions from the Iowa Supreme Court.

In a harsh, almost brutal, verbal exchange with the Iowa justices on Thursday, Magistrate David J. Hanson said he had not realized the term wetback was offensive — a claim the chief justice immediately rejected — before pivoting to a critique of the U.S. Senate hearings, years ago, on the nominations of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas.

The Iowa Judicial Qualifications Commission, which hears complaints about judges’ conduct, has recommended that the Iowa Supreme Court suspend Hanson, a part-time magistrate who is based in Fayette County and practiced law for more than 36 years. The recommendation is tied to comments made by Hanson in two separate criminal matters.

Hanson was appointed to the position of magistrate in January 2022. On Aug. 5, 2022, he refused to sign an arrest warrant for a 17-year-old girl in a sexual abuse case in which the alleged victim was male. According to court records, Hanson reviewed the matter and, with regard to the alleged victim, stated in writing, “The boy will automatically think, ‘Alright! I’m gonna GET some!’”

In denying the warrant application, the commission alleges, Hanson turned to the internet to conduct his own form of “research” and found information that supported his view of the victim’s “innate physical advantage” to conclude that if the victim had wanted to, he could have overpowered the defendant.

The commission argues Hanson’s decision was based on “stereotypical views and observations as to how a male victim of sexual assault should react when allegedly assaulted by a female offender,” and that the order “is unfitting of a judicial officer because it expressed bias (and) included unnecessary and inappropriate commentary about parties.”

Hanson later described his refusal as a “ruling in anger over what I thought was a specious request for an arrest warrant, and I own up to that. If I make a decision and somebody don’t like it, well, I’m sorry.”

In July 2023, Hanson was presiding over a case in which an individual was charged with driving without a license or insurance. A law-student intern who was prosecuting the case later complained that during the proceedings Hanson asked, “Is this guy a wetback? An illegal?”

According to the commission, Hanson also asked whether the prosecutor was sure the defendant, who wasn’t present at the time, hadn’t stolen someone’s identification.

The intern later complained that Hanson’s conduct made her “extremely uncomfortable” and raised concerns that Hanson, due to his use of a “racist slur,” was biased. Hanson later said he didn’t recall the incident and told the commission it could “make whatever decision it wants to make, and I will roll with the punch and take whatever you give me. … So just do what you think is right.”

The commission recommended the Iowa Supreme Court impose a 90-day suspension without pay and require Hanson to submit to educational training on anger management and bias.

Chief justice cites ‘damage’ to victims

At Thursday’s hearing before the Iowa Supreme Court, Hanson told the justices that with regard to the allegations made by the victim in the sexual abuse case, “I honestly thought, ‘This is a lie. It reads like bad pornography.’ I hate pornography. Pornography is lies … I still, to this day, am convinced that the arrest warrant request, the complaint, was resting on lies.”

Chief Justice Susan Christensen appeared to bristle at Hanson’s comment and questioned his equation of pornography with lies.

“Sir, are you aware that things that happen to people are pornographic in nature? And sometimes, in order for there to be an arrest warrant, someone might have to give details that are really ugly to give (and) heartbreaking to hear?" she asked. "Just because you’re giving the adjective ‘porn’ — what if those things actually happened to that person? Because it qualifies as porn in your mind and you hate porn, you think it’s a lie?”

“I seriously questioned it,” Hanson replied. “The other problem I had was the utter lack of interest, as far as I could tell, in the policeman attempting to corroborate what the young man said.”

Hanson then likened the decision he faced in that case with what he called the “travesty” of the testimony that was given during the U.S. Supreme Court nomination hearings for Kavanaugh in 2018 and for Thomas in 1991.

“Those were lies,” Hanson said, pounding the podium as he addressed the Iowa justices. “Televised lies! And I was appalled by that, and I thought, ‘I will not be an instrument of anyone seeking to destroy someone without any backing up of what (the alleged victim) said here.’ We’re talking about a couple of teenagers who I didn’t encounter and who apparently did some illegal things while they were in the process of it — because that’s what the fact pattern indicated — and I thought, ‘I just don’t see how this is, this is, happening.’”

Christensen appeared to express frustration with Hanson, suggesting he didn’t appear to recognize the issue wasn’t whether he had the right to deny the request for an arrest warrant.

“Do you understand the issue we’re dealing with is the light that you just put the entire Iowa Judicial Branch in?” Christensen asked. “And for you to say, ‘I didn’t say anything that was offensive’ — I am just going to pick one thing out (of the written warrant denial): that any self-respecting young male in this situation would leave the situation and that he probably thought, ‘Alright, I’m gonna get it.’ Now, I am speaking as a former juvenile judge. The amount of damage you did to any juvenile, and especially a male juvenile, to ever be brave enough to step forward say something happened — you may not have believed him. But the way you wrote it and denied it knocked him flat, no doubt. And anybody else who reads this now-public document, how can that not be offensive?”

“Well,” Hanson said, “all I can say is that when this was first run past the Judicial Qualifications Commission, they didn’t see fit to discipline me. I didn’t know what was right or wrong.”

Chief justice: ‘You really think we have to spoon-feed you…?’

As to the second matter involving the case in which Hanson used the term wetback, Christensen asked Hanson, “Do you think the term wetback is offensive?”

“I’ve learned since using it that it is,” Hanson said. “I grew up in west side, working class Waterloo, and it was fairly common.”

Christensen cut Hanson off, shaking her head and telling him, “You definitely, that one, I am gonna call ‘foul’ on that, that you didn’t know it was offensive.”

Christensen also indicated that at some point during the disciplinary process Hanson appeared to have suggested that someone simply give him a “list of words” considered offensive so that he could avoid saying them in the future.

“Yeah, I think I said that,” Hanson told Christensen.

“You really think we have to spoon-feed you how to say appropriate things in your capacity as a judicial officer?” Christensen asked.

Hanson argued that if he was going to be held to a certain standard, “I need to know what the standard is,” adding that he is “perfectly prepared to meet that standard.”

Christensen then asked Hanson whether he’d ever read the Code of Judicial Conduct prior to beginning his work as a magistrate, indicating the code articulates the standards he must uphold.

Justice Christopher McDonald asked Hanson why, in the sex-abuse case, he couldn’t have denied the request for a warrant by simply citing a lack of evidence as opposed to “going out of your way, in my view, to be offensive.” Hanson said he didn’t intend to be offensive and was simply trying to explain the rationale for his decision.

Hanson told the justices he is agreeable to taking whatever educational courses the court might prescribe for him but asked that he not be removed from the bench due to the heavy caseloads in Fayette County.

Christensen questioned that approach, noting that the magistrates who preside over the minor cases heard in associate court represent the only element of the judicial branch with which most Iowans will ever have contact.

“You’re suggesting that you continue to work before any of this sensitivity training?” she asked Hanson. “If we put you back out there to continue to preside over cases, knowing what you have put in writing, and knowing what you have done with this black robe that comes with such a responsibility and (knowing) what you have already shown us you’re capable of — how can we do that?”

“I suppose you could remove me entirely,” Hanson said.

Christensen said she was waiting to hear some indication from Hanson that he regretted his actions. In response, Hanson said was sorry “from the depths of my soul” that he had offended others.

Justice David May noted that judges and magistrates are required to ensure that all attorneys and court personnel, in addition to themselves, don’t use racial slurs in court. “I don’t know how to trust you with that responsibility,” May said.

“You are a judge in a robe sittin’ on a bench,” Christensen told Hanson. “I cannot fathom the amount of courage it took for that young law student to rat you out (on behalf of) that 15-year-old student — or, rather, that alleged victim — who was looking for an arrest warrant.”

The court has yet to rule on the commission’s recommendation of a 90-day suspension.

Find this story at Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions:kobradovich@iowacapitaldispatch.com.

This story was updated to add a gallery.