Gov. Kate Brown appoints pro tem judge Amanda Benjamin to Lincoln County circuit court

In a decision highly anticipated within Lincoln County’s legal community, Gov. Kate Brown announced Wednesday that she was appointing Amanda Benjamin to replace Circuit Judge Thomas Branford, who retired in February. The appointment is effective immediately.

Benjamin has spent the past two years on the Lincoln County bench as a hearings referee and judge pro-tem under a contract with the Oregon Judicial Department.

It was Benjamin’s second attempt at appointment to the court.

She was one of four who sought appointment to fill a vacancy in 2019, but Brown instead chose Newport attorney Marcia Buckley. Benjamin then challenged Buckley in last November’s general election, losing by 143 votes out of more than 25,000 cast.

That race was unusual because Branford and Judge Sheryl Bachart, who is now the presiding judge, publicly endorsed and donated to Benjamin’s campaign. While not prohibited under Oregon’s code of judicial conduct, it was very unusual.

Benjamin and three others also sought the appointment to replace Branford. The others were Brian Gardner, a Newport attorney who twice worked in the district attorney’s office, the last time for Jonathan Cable who was defeated in the November general election; Kenneth “Rusty” Park, a longtime deputy district attorney who also applied for the appointment in 2019; and, Russell Baldwin, a Lincoln City attorney who also sought the 2019 appointment and ran unsuccessfully for judgeships in 2018 and 2020.

Brown interviewed Benjamin and Gardner.

“Amanda Benjamin’s dedicated service to Lincoln County as a full-time hearings referee and judge pro tem for the past two years makes her uniquely well positions to hit the ground running,” Brown said in a news release announcing the appointment.

Benjamin earned her law degree from the University of Tennessee, then joined private practices in Medford and Newport before working in the district attorney’s offices in Lincoln and Malheur counties. In 2016 she was named prosecutor of the year by Lincoln County law enforcement agencies. While serving as judge pro tem, she led the formation of the county’s mental health treatment court.

Even with the appointment, the position will still be up for election next year.

Candidates can file by March 8, 2022, according to Lincoln County Clerk Dana Jenkins. If one or two candidates file, they would skip the May 2022 primary election and meet in the November general election. If three or more file, they would appear on the May ballot and the top two would go on to the November general election, unless one candidate receives more than 50 percent, when the top vote-getter would go on alone to the general election. It would be for a new, six-year term starting January 2023.