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You don’t have to worry about getting on the bad side of Littleton Municipal Judge James Kimmel anymore.
Kimmel, who issued an arrest warrant for a teenager who failed to return a DVD to the library on time, has lost his job, at least in part for cracking down too hard, according to 9News. The Littleton City Council voted unanimously to remove Kimmel, who says he was trying to tighten the reins because the city loses thousands of dollars a year in library property.
“I think that if people understand their ramifications for not returning materials, they will return them, and I was trying to keep the city from having further losses,” he says.
Council members offered Kimmel a chance to resign with a severance package, but he refused because the settlement would have prevented him from discussing why he left his job.
“If all of a sudden you’re on the bench for 30 years and you’re gone the next day and you can’t tell why, everyone speculates it really is much more serious than it was,” Kimmel explains, adding that he won’t fight to get his job back but will instead become a private attorney.
The story has spread through the blogs, including one at the Kansas City Star, which looks at some minutia from the case.