A newly elected Alabama judge has been removed from the bench indefinitely after a 120-page complaint accused her of deliberately delaying hearings, bullying staff, and treating her courtroom as a personal fiefdom where she answered to no one.
Jefferson County Probate Judge Yashiba Blanchard was suspended on 22 May 2026 following a formal complaint filed the day prior by Alabama's Judicial Inquiry Commission, which charged her with seven violations of the Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics. The commission's complaint, filed as COJ#67 with the Court of the Judiciary, alleges she ran the Jefferson County Probate Court in a manner that was not only professionally reckless but caused measurable harm to vulnerable people, including involuntary-commitment patients who remained hospitalised longer than necessary because Blanchard cancelled their hearings.
