Three U.S. senators have called for the resignation of an Alabama district court judge arrested for domestic violence last month.

Republican Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri on Wednesday called on U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller to step down. Their demands stemming from his August 10 arrest for domestic violence.

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“I believe Judge Mark Fuller has lost the confidence of his colleagues and the people of the state of Alabama and I urge him to resign immediately,” Shelby told the Montgomery Advertiser, which first reported the news.The senators joined Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), who called on Fuller to resign last week in a post on her official Twitter account, saying that the judge had “violated the public trust.”

Sessions followed suit later Wednesday afternoon. “Judge Fuller’s unacceptable personal conduct violates the trust that has been placed in him,” he said in a statement. “He can no longer effectively serve in his position and should step down.”

McCaskill, a former prosecutor who has sponsored legislation in the past year on sexual assaults on college campuses and in the military, called on Fuller to resign in a tweet Wednesday afternoon. The Missouri senator also referenced Fuller during a segment of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday morning, though she did not specifically call for his resignation on the show.

Earlier this week, Republican Rep. Martha Roby of Alabama suggested potential impeachment proceedings against Fuller, but said she would wait for the investigation and disciplinary process to be completed.

The judge was charged in August with misdemeanor battery after allegedly throwing his wife to the floor, pulling her hair and kicking her at an Atlanta hotel, according to the police report obtained by the Advertiser. Earlier this month, the judge accepted a plea deal to have the arrest removed if he undergoes a domestic violence counseling program.

The calls for Fuller’s resignation coincide with an intensified spotlight on domestic violence from Capitol Hill and across the country. The issue has received considerable attention since the release of a video showing then-Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice punching his fiancée, whom he has since married, twice in an elevator, prompting the National Football League to revisit its initial two-game suspension and suspend Rice indefinitely. Since then, the NFL and its sponsors have come under increased scrutiny amid criticism of their response to the Rice incident and recent domestic violence allegations against several other players.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/mark-fuller-senators-resign-request-111090.html