Shortly before leaving the Federal Public Defender Office, a federal judge I practiced before was arrested for domestic violence at the Ritz Carlton. In the audio of the 911 call you could hear him drunkenly slapping his wife and her crying for help. 1/7 reuters.com/investigates/s…
It took almost 1 year for this judge to step down. After his arrest a former client called me from prison indignant, after being sentenced by this same judge to serve 2 years in federal prison for beating his girlfriend, in violation of the conditions of his probation. 2/7
"How is it that that man still gets to decide the future of people like me? That's like the pot calling the kettle black." he asked. 3/7
And you know what? My client was right. It wasn't fair. But the reality was that he poor and Black with a record. and this judge was white, wealthy, with a record of bad conduct that only saw the light of day in his publicly leaked divorce complaint. 4/7
During my FPD years, another federal judge in a nearby jurisdiction was arrested in an undercover drug sting, and found with drugs, a firearm, and a government issued laptop he had stolen for his younger attractive girlfriend. 5/7
In every case where the discovery documents revealed both drugs and a firearm, without fail me and my colleagues knew what that meant for our clients. They were going down for a long time. But not this judge, who only served 1 month in a minimum security club fed. 6/7
The double standard between how justice is applied to over-policed communities v. members of the system is staggering. When the system cannot hold accountable those responsible for administering justice, when the system cannot judge itself, the system is not fit to judge us. 7/7
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