Oregon judge goes on anti-gun tirade from the bench: ‘Dump them in the ocean’
‘Nobody’ should have a gun, not even ‘police’ or ‘security’ guards, he said

Calling them a “scourge of this country” that “no one should have,” a judge in Portland, Oregon, went on an anti-gun tirade during a sentencing hearing recently, The Oregonian newspaper reported on its website Wednesday.
Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Walkermade his remarks while sentencing drive-by shooter Marcell Lee Daniel Jr. on a murder charge.
“If I could, I would take all the guns in America, put them on big barges and go dump them in the ocean,” Judge Walker told Mr. Daniel, The Oregonian reported. “Nobody would have a gun. Not police, not security, not anybody. We should eliminate all of them. We could save 33,000 people a year if we didn’t have guns in this country.”
“They are a scourge of this country, and no one should have one as far as I’m concerned,” the judge — a former public criminal defense attorney — added later before insisting that was merely his personal opinion and that he would not seek to overturn gun rights from the bench.
“There’s no defense to guns. There’s just absolutely no reason to have them. But it is a right of people in this country to own and possess them, and I will not say anything to affect that right.”
According to BallotPedia.com, Judge Walker was appointed to the bench in February 2007 by then-Gov. Ted Kulongoski and was re-elected in 2014 to a term which expires on January 3, 2021.

Judge Kenneth Walker
Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Ken Walker
503.988.3041

Some judges have gone directly from high school, to college, to law school, to private practice, to the bench. This is not about one of those judges.

Judge Walker was born in 1951 in San Pedro, Calif.; his family moved to nearby Compton when he was six months old. His parents were from Mississippi. They had moved to California to raise their children in an environment that would offer more opportunity for African-Americans than was possible in the Deep South . What they didn't know what that Compton, and its neighbors Watts and South Central Los Angeles, were beginning to change almost as they arrived. In a picture from Judge Walker's fifth birthday party, the 10 neighborhood children attending were black, white and Asian; the pictures of his eighth birthday party show only black neighbors. His parents had unknowingly traded the segregation and poverty of the South for the segregation and poverty of the inner city.

The future judge first thought of becoming a lawyer while watching Perry Mason on TV. "He represented the underdog, and he made sure that all people were protected in court, even if they appeared to be guilty. I liked that," he says. But Walker also toyed with the idea of becoming a professional athlete. He played almost all sports as he grew up, but baseball was his favorite. At the age of eight he had a "decent curveball" and asked his father if he should become a professional baseball player or a lawyer. "A lawyer," his father said. "A pro ballplayer lasts maybe 5-10 years; you can be a lawyer for life."

Getting there, however, would come be a fairly circuitous route. Compton in the 1960s was becoming an increasingly tough neighborhood. At the end of his junior year in high school, several of his friends convinced him to try something different.

"They had gone into the Job Corps in Tongue Point, Oregon, then transferred to a high school equivalency program in Eugene," he says. "When they came back to Los Angeles to visit, they told me about a place where people were friendly, smiled at you, and trusted you. I was sold."

The Eugene program was full, however, so he went to a similar program in Pullman, Wash. He got his GED and finished his first semester of college at Washington State. The Culture shock of living in Pullman, however, finally hit. He returned to Los Angeles only to find that he was now "Living in a war zone," so he moved back to Eugene and enrolled at Lane Community College, where he was soon elected vice president of the student body.

The summer following his sophomore year he was elected vice president of the National Student Association. He moved to Washington, D.C., for a year and traveled around the country, working with student governments nationwide. Then it was back to Eugene for a BA from U of O in community service and public affairs. He moved to Portland looking for a good job, but all he could get was one as a night watchman, so after another year it was back to the U of O for law school.

His first job out of law school was with Marion-Polk Legal Aid in Salem. After 18 months he left to join the Portland office of Metropolitan Public Defender Services, where he remained for seven and a half years, representing clients in the full gamut of criminal cases. He also became reacquainted with Ernie Warren, another young black attorney he had first met in Salem. They started to talk about private practice and in 1990 left the public defenders to open the first African American law firm in Oregon.

They planned to move from criminal defense into civil practice after a few years. Warren did that, but Judge Walker couldn't shake his memories of Perry Mason. He realized that he truly enjoyed criminal defense and his ability to "help the little guy." So he stayed with it, building up a substantial retained practice while continuing to represent indigent defendants for more than 17 years. He also became more active in the community, raised a family and played in 15 national softball championships.

On February 28, Governor Ted Kulongoski appointed Judge Walker to Department 11, the seat Judge Linda Bergman held for 26 years. While he won't commit to that long a judicial career, he is certainly enjoying the challenge.

"I loved to try cases and fight for my client," Judge Walker says, "and being a judge feels like a natural transition from practice. Now I try to objectively look at the facts, read the cases, listen to the arguments and then try to get it right. To me, that is the essence of being in the legal profession."

That intellectual exercise, though, will always be tempered with an understanding of where he came from. "Sometimes when I look across the bench, I see that teenager from Compton. He will be held accountable if he's done something wrong, but if we can give him the right opportunity at the right time, he might surprise us all with what he really has."

Just like Judge Walker.

I really enjoyed knowing Ken in the late 1980s. He is a great guy who instead of pursuing the all to common pursuit of the almighty dollar as far as many talented attorneys do. He devoted his talent (as most Legal Aid attorneys working for peanuts do) to the people who desperately needed help but could not afford it. We are within one year of being the same age. I had no idea of where Ken grew up until I read his biography on the Oregon Bar Association web site. I enjoyed an Idyllic childhood in "green acres" while he grew up in Compton, CA. The epicenter of the film "Boyz in the Hood". When I was 12 years old I witnessed the "as seen on TV" version of the 1964 Watts riots. At the age of 13 Ken lived it. I understand how he could be compelled to voice his dream of all guns lying on the bottom of the sea when sentencing a young shooter found guilty of a fatal drive by shooting. I also dream of world peace and the end of man's violence toward man. I'm confident that Ken, as I do realize it is only a dream. He stated that it was his personal opinion and would not affect his court decisions. That seems impossible but if it could be done, I believe Ken could do it.