A local judge was also just banned for mishandling many cases, including some related to animals. Real change is needed in this city. Bennington jailed Muncie resident John Ewing without affording him sufficient due process, "abusing her contempt powers." Ewing, appearing before Bennington on a cruelty-to-an-animal charge, asked for a public defender but the judge denied his request, the state said. She later ordered him jailed without sentencing him to a specific time or indication of when he would be released. •She held a sentencing hearing in the Ewing case without having a prosecutor present. •The judge or her staff subsequently lost the court file on the Ewing case. •Bennington ordered Muncie resident Curtis Westbrook jailed for contempt "without affording (him) sufficient due process." Westbrook — who had circulated fliers criticizing the judge, referring her "One-Term Bennington" — was jailed for 10 days. While still incarcerated, he told The Star Press he intended to file a related complaint with state judicial officials. •The judge accepted a guilty plea from defendant Tory Gillenwater, but rejected a related plea agreement, and made "prejudicial statements." Gillenwater, who was facing a misdemeanor charge of cruelty to an animal, entered a guilty plea approved by a deputy prosecutor, but Bennington rejected the plea, calling it "not good enough punishment" and saying what Gillenwater had done was "atrocious." •From 2012 through June 1, 2014, she did not require guilty pleas or sentencing hearings in misdemeanor cases to be recorded, a violation of state court rules. •She wrongfully imposed community service and the writing of a paper on Jonathan Proctor, after he was charged with illegal possession of tobacco, an infraction filed in 2012, when he was 15. The commission alleges she had no legal authority to impose those terms of his sentence. She is also accused of improperly issuing a warrant for the teen's arrest, leading to his overnight stay in jail. •Bennington had the driving privileges suspended for defendants who failed to pay fines for illegal possession of tobacco, "with no statutory or legal authority to take such action," the commission wrote. http://t.co/Pskul2rYEL