The Des Moines Register Saturday, June 1, 1996, Page 3M. letters@dmreg.com State legislator wants change regarding judges Clive, Ia. - A state senator, upset with the sentencing of former Urbandale police officer James Trimble, suggested Friday that senior judges should not be allowed to decide such cases. Sen. 0. Gene Maddox, R-Clive, complained in a newsletter that senior judges - who are retired but fill in on the bench when needed - are not answerable to the public. "I believe we should change the law to add more accountability for senior judges and/or to limit their jurisdiction to non-criminal offenses," he wrote. Maddox, a former mayor of Clive, sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and is up for relection in the fa11. Unlike their full-time colleagues, senior judges are not subjected to periodic voter approval. The senior judge in the Trimble case, former Iowa Appeals Court judge Leo Oxberger, could not be reached for comment Friday. Oxberger sentenced Trimble to probation and 100 hours of oommunity service after Trimble had been arrested with $20,000 worth of methamphetamine, which he admitted stealing from a police evidence locker. Prosecutors had argued that Trimble should go to prison because he violated the public trust as an anti-drug officer in Urbandale schools.