The mother of a 13-year-old rape victim is helping organize a campaign to vote off the bench the judge who granted a lightened sentence for three men convicted in the assault.

The campaign against Paula B. Martin, set to begin Tuesday with an organizational meeting at the Lawrence Public Library, marks the first time a local judge has faced organized opposition heading into a retention election.

“It’s never happened in Douglas County,” said Robert Fairchild, the chief judge in Douglas County District Court.

Fairchild said Martin could start her own campaign to answer her critics, but said he did not know whether she planned to do so.

“We cannot campaign normally unless a group forms against us. Then we can raise money and respond through a group,” Fairchild said. “The problem is, judges cannot respond to specific cases.”

Members of the group, called Watchdogs to Remove Judge Martin, are outraged that she broke from state sentencing guidelines earlier this year to give probation and suspended prison sentences to three men convicted in the June 2003 rape. This week, the girl’s mother began spreading the word via e-mail and online message boards that the group would meet at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 21 in the library’s auditorium.

The girl’s mother said she was hoping about 20 people would show up.

“The bottom line for myself is that my daughter doesn’t get a second chance in all of this,” she said. “Why should Judge Martin?”

The Journal-World generally does not publish the names of rape victims or the names of relatives that could make the victim identifiable.

Kansas’ rape statute covers a wide range of crimes, including both forcible rapes and statutory rapes, in which the victim is too young to consent. Under state sentencing guidelines, they’re all treated with the same severity: a presumed penalty of at least 13 years in prison.

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But Martin found in the girl’s case there were “substantial and compelling” reasons under state law to give lighter sentences, including her finding that the intoxicated girl was an “active participant” in the rape and wasn’t harmed as much as some rape victims.

For two 18-year-old defendants convicted of rape — Brian K. Ussery, of Tonganoxie, and William N. Haney, of Lawrence — Martin ordered five years’ probation, 60 days in jail and community service. Michael J. Rayton, 28, Lawrence, who entered a plea to aggravated indecent liberties with a child, received a similar sentence.

Martin did not return a phone call seeking comment about the campaign against her. Instead, she referred questions to Fairchild.

“Judge Martin is a very conscientious, very caring individual,” Fairchild said. “I can’t comment on a specific case because I don’t know what her rationale was. All I can say is that she’s been a real asset to our bench.”

Douglas County Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney, who opposed the lighter sentences and is appealing two of them, said she didn’t want to comment specifically on the campaign.

“As somebody who is an elected official, I respect that the public pays attention to what we do in the court system, that we don’t operate in a vacuum,” Kenney said. “I recognize that people have the right to voice their opinions.”

The rapes happened after a night of drinking at a central Lawrence apartment.

The girl wasn’t beaten or held against her will, and testimony showed she made encouraging comments to the men. But children under 14 are unable to consent to sex under Kansas law, and the girl had been so intoxicated earlier in the night that some of the men thought she had alcohol poisoning.

Also, a prosecutor said Rayton told police there was a plan to get the girl drunk so it would be easier to have sex with her. That information didn’t come out in court until both Ussery and Haney had been sentenced.

A fourth suspect, Dana S. Jackson, was sentenced by a different judge in juvenile court to 30 months in a juvenile-corrections facility after being convicted of attempted rape.

Martin, 51, is a 1981 Kansas University law school graduate who worked in private practice from 1981 to 1990; she then worked for two years as a deputy disciplinary administrator for the state’s judicial branch.

She was appointed to the bench in August 1994.

Of Kansas’ 31 judicial districts, 17, including Douglas County, have appointed judges who aren’t elected but are up for retention on the ballot every four years. In fourteen districts, including Sedgwick and Wyandotte counties, judges are elected in partisan elections.