The Sins of Justice Yarbrough

"I'm so down. I'll feel better after I really believe that son of a bitch Kemp just might as well bite the dust... I want Kemp wiped away ... The best thing would be to do it myself if I had a gun with a silencer."

Dialogue from a grade-B Mob movie? No, it is the tape-recorded musing of Donald B. Yarbrough, 35, associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Added to Yarbrough's other troubles, which range from 17 civil suits to a forgery indictment to an 84-count disbarment petition, the recording may well herald an early end to one of the strangest Texan judicial careers since the heyday of Hanging Judge Roy Bean.

Only a few months ago, Yarbrough had ample reason to exult. The little-known Houston attorney had defeated a respected San Antonio appellate judge for the Democratic nomination to the state's highest civil bench. Outraged bar leaders attributed the upset to voters, confusing Yarbrough with Donald H. Yarborough, a three-time gubernatorial candidate (TIME, Aug. 30, 1976). After the primary, Yarbrough, a born-again Christian and former counsel to Campus Crusade for Christ, announced that God had instructed him to run for public office and would assist him in judicial decisionmaking. Only then was it revealed that some 13 suits for bad debts and business fraud were pending against Yarbrough in various courts.

No Republicans ran against him. and so Yarbrough easily defeated the write-in candidacy of a judge named Sam Houston. And though the State Bar Association filed disbarment charges against him, Yarbrough gloated: "The legal establishment has taken their best shots and I beat them."

That pronouncement proved premature. In May, Houston police happened to collar one John Rothkopf, 58, a former business associate of Yarbrough, who had been a fugitive from charges that he and Yarbrough got $30,030 for a collection of rare coins that they had never delivered. Once in custody, Rothkopf began talking. He said that Yarbrough had supplied him with forged identity papers to help him hide out in Louisiana and Texas for two years. While he was a fugitive, Rothkopf claimed, he and Yarbrough had discussed assassinating other former Yarbrough business partners who were now cooperating with the police. The newly sworn justice also supplied Rothkopf with an "enemies list" in March after declaring "open warfare on those son of a bitches."

Closing In. Incredulous police strapped a tape recorder on Rothkopf's back and photographed him at half a dozen furtive meetings with Yarbrough, in an Austin motel room and various Houston parking lots and fast-food outlets. The tapes reveal a vengeful Yarbrough considering a murder contract on Bill Kemp, who had been given immunity from prosecution in return for testimony about Yarbrough's role in a 1974 fraud scheme. At the final meeting on June 10, however, Yarbrough turned cautious: "This is not the time to do it. The FBI is investigating me for all sorts of things. They're closing in. Forget about Kemp and all those other people right now."

Harris County (Houston) Prosecutor Carol Vance decided there was insufficient evidence to justify a murder conspiracy indictment, but he released the tapes because "I feel the people of the state of Texas should know what type of person sits on the Supreme Court bench." An Austin grand jury summoned Yarbrough and indicted him for perjury and for helping Informer Rothkopf to forge an auto title. The state bar prepared to add charges Nos. 85 (soliciting a murder), 86 (obstructing justice) and 87 (forgery) to Yarbrough's disbarment petition, which goes to trial Aug. 1. For their part, the state judicial qualifications commission and state legislature started removal proceedings.

Last week a misty-eyed Yarbrough called reporters to his judicial chambers to confess his "sins" and "wrongdoings." Said he: "I have asked my God through the power of Jesus Christ to forgive me and I know in a very glorious way that He has forgiven me." The justice refused, however, to answer any questions about the details of his "sins."

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