Don Torgerson’s tenure as a Seventh District Court judge began in July 0f 2018. My time as editor of The Times-Independent began a couple of weeks later. I recall sometime that August a reception was held at the courthouse and members of the community came out to meet Torgerson.

He and I shared a few kind words that day and we haven’t spoken since. This is not unusual. Judges, if they’re smart, live private lives — apart from and yet very much connected to the communities they serve.

The first serious case I covered with Torgerson on the bench was in 2019. It involved a murder that occurred Oct. 28, 2018, at the now City of Moab-owned Walnut Lane trailer park. It was, as most murder trials are, full of drama and other theatrics and soul-crushing testimony from witnesses. Torgerson sentenced the killer to 33 years and constructed the sentencing’s terms so the man wouldn’t be eligible for parole for decades. It was the judge’s first murder trial and he checked all the boxes. The defendant’s subsequent appeal failed as there were no holes in the record.

Over the intervening seven-plus years, I’ve seen Torgerson throw the proverbial book at our most violent criminals and I’ve seen him give second and even third chances to people who commit small crimes due to an underlying mental health condition or to feed their addiction, which is what led them to petty crime in the first place.

Justice should be tempered with mercy when appropriate, and Torgerson has proven to be merciful — when it’s appropriate.

And so I was taken aback when I read a report from an out-of-town reporter for KSL who wrote about Torgerson’s overseeing of a case involving a young man who was found guilty of possessing images of child sexual abuse.

Admittedly, this was a serious crime with wholly innocent and sympathetic victims. But the sentencing was well within the guidelines the Utah Legislature established. It must also be noted that Grand County Attorney Stephen Stocks dropped several first-degree felony counts as part of a plea deal, and reduced the two remaining first-degree felonies to second degree.

The prosecutor agreed to probation during plea negotiations, according to court documents, yet inexplicably argued for prison on the day of the sentencing. Had a single first-degree felony been left on the table as part of the plea deal the defendant would have faced mandatory prison time.

The Legislature, which routinely targets Moab with the precision of a skilled sniper, got all hot and bothered by the KSL report. “It boils my blood,” said House Speaker Mike Schultz. Lurking in the background was this unasked question: What about the children?

Yes. What about the children? If the Legislature was really worried “about the children,” then where was the fury when Schultz’s counterpart, Senate President Stuart Adams, recently ushered in a change to Utah’s statutory sexual assault law for one reason: To protect a relative from having to register as a sex offender after they were caught in an intimate relationship with a minor.

What? Not even a peep? Where’s the boiling blood? Where’s the outrage? What about the children?

Here’s the real reason why the Legislature censured Torgerson while ignoring Adams’ wholly improper manipulation of the law: politics. Lawmakers are looking to take down the state’s judiciary a peg or 10 because Utah judges keep telling lawmakers the actions they take, such as gerrymandering the heck out of the entire state, are unlawful and contrary to the state constitution they took an oath to uphold.

They deem any judge who rules against them an “activist.” That’s our Supreme Court, our appellate court, and our district courts. Let’s not forget the judiciary is an independent and co-equal branch of Utah’s government.

This censure of Torgerson is, of course, a rotten mix of fake outrage and dirty politics. If a good judge has to be publicly defamed in order to advance the fight, so be it. It’s nothing more than the Legislature engaging in its favorite pastime: Rigging the system against ordinary Utahns in order to hold supreme power. Lawmakers’ call to reform the judiciary is a clear attack on the judiciary’s independence and the separation of powers.

I remember when hypocrisy was a word that held meaning and to be called a hypocrite was to suffer a severe insult. Nowadays, some wear it like a badge of honor, with a smirk on their face.

Shame on the Utah Legislature. Judge Torgerson deserves better.

Doug McMurdo is the editor of The Times-Independent newspaper in Moab.

This column originally appeared in The Times-Independent.