Cole-Hodgkinson guilty of contempt

Hill County Justice of the Peace Audrey Barger sentenced today the former Hill County attorney to six days of house arrest and ordered her to pay a $1,500 fine after finding Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson duty of three counts of contempt.

Barger granted Cole-Hodgksinson a 30-day delay to give her time to request a review of Barger's findings in state District Court.

Barger found Cole-Hodgkinson in contempt for not appearing or finding an attorney who could appear in cases in which her sole deputy attorney, Karen Alley - who was appointed Hill County Attorney after Cole-Hodgkinson resigned June 30 - could not prosecute due to a conflict.

Barger told Cole-Hodgkinson that she could not stress enough how much of a disruption to the court and to justice it was by her not appearing.

"I am just a judge trying to maintain the dignity of her court," Barger said.

She told Barger after the sentencing that she respectfully disagrees with the court's findings and planned to file for a review.

Cole-Hodgkinson spent more than a half an hour talking about what led her to being out of town and unable to appear - emergency care for her dog, which she said is a service dog, much more than a companion - and how she expected her staff to let her know if they had conflicts and she needed to take action.

She said she believed she had acted responsibly and was not at fault.

While stating the facts of the case, Barger said that during the hearings July 16, Alley told the court she had advised Cole-Hodgkinson of the conflicts and had not responded to communications via text, email and telephone.

Hill County Sheriff Jamieson Ross testified that he believed Cole-Hodgkinson could not be safely jailed in the Hill County Detention Center due to people prosecuted by the county attorney being there, and testified to the expense of housing her in other counties.

Barger said she does not want to cause any harm to Cole-Hodgkinson and did not want to cause expense to the county. Due to that, she said, she sentenced Cole-Hodginson to house arrest, requiring her to wear a monitoring bracelet at her own expense.

She imposed one day of jail for the first count of contempt, two for the second and three for the third. She imposed a $500 for each count and ordered the jail time to run consecutively.

Cole-Hodgkinson had faced hearings in state District Court last Thursday in which Judge Dan Boucher ordered her to explain why she had not filed judgments for him to sign for sentences in three cases where he imposed sentences.

After Cole-Hodgkinson sent him the judgments July 30, and also announced her resignation effective at 8 a.m. that day, Boucher vacated the hearing.

Watch for more in Wednesday’s Havre Daily News