Oh. Well, then. Never mind. I bow to your superior information.
Trump just put him on the short list to replace Scalia.
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When was Admiral Ackbar elevated to the bench?
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Judge Hafen broke protocol by referring informally to Ms. Bakhtary, but this doesnât mitigate her REPEATEDLY TALKING OVER A JUDGE. I mean, wow. Court is where the real shit goes down, and you just donât do that.
Non-lawyer here who appreciates the solemn majesty of the law.
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Judge Evil the ContemptibleâŚ
I donât know why this is even news. Stuff like this happens, The Judge is the boss in the courtroom, and no matter what you think of him, you follow his directives in his court.
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The man is quite obviously suffering from a congenital facial deformity â this doesnât excuse his patronizing attitude, but clearly, he cannot do anything about the way he looks.
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Well who can argue with a well-reasoned, detailed, thoroughly explicated argument like that? Especially one so well-grounded in the rules governing judicial conduct and the process for removing them.
Yeah, the judge should be âfired.â Someone should go that judgeâs supervisor or the HR department and get him fired because, after all, a judge is just an at-will employee.
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Solid point.
I was ready to suspend judgment on this one. I donât like the way the guy looks any better than anyone else does, but itâs a little unfair to judge him for that. And there really are public defenders who take it too far and richly deserve to be stifled. It happens more than youâd think. However, addressing an attorney by her first name in open court is absolutely uncool. No judge should EVER do that. The way that sort of thing most frequently comes up is that one of the attorneys in a case addresses the other by their first name; itâs an easy mistake to make, because the attorneys for adverse parties are frequently friends, and address each other by first names all the time outside of court. But when it happens in court, the judge invariably chastises whoever did it and warns them to use âMr.â or âMs.â A judge who uses attorneysâ first names himself is completely out of order. So my sympathy is with the lawyer on this one.
Actually, he DID do that:
MS. BAKHTARY: But the Court is indicating
14 that because he picked up a petit larceny citation,
15 which absolutely is a violation of his stay out of
16 trouble.
17 THE COURT: Right.
18 MS. BAKHTARY: But there has to be some
19 leniency in this department.
20 THE COURT: No, there doesnât just.
21 MS. BAKHTARY: There has to be some
22 indicative circumstance â
23 THE COURT: No. No, there doesnât. Let me
24 show you the leniency. Just so everybody in the
25 courtroom understands the leniency that was provided to
1 the defendant. Okay? Iâm going to take a few minutes
2 and weâre going to explain everything because Iâm going
3 to debunk this theory of yours. Okay, Zohra?
4 Just so everybody knows, this defendant was
5 charged with a felony and a gross misdemeanor. Okay?
6 MS. BAKHTARY: Judge, I would ask the Court
7 not to â
8 THE COURT: Zohra, be quiet.
9 MS. BAKHTARY: Judge, youâre asking â
10 THE COURT: Zohra â
11 MS. BAKHTARY: Youâre making â
12 THE COURT: Do you want to be found in
13 contempt?
14 MS. BAKHTARY: Judge, youâre asking â
15 THE COURT: Zohra, be quiet. Now. Not
16 another word.
17 MS. BAKHTARY: Judge, youâre â
18 THE COURT: Travis, right now. Iâm tired of
19 it. Right now.
20 (Whereupon, Ms. Bakhtary
21 was taken into custody.)
Seems like he was well within his rights to do this. If she thought he was making a mistake in sending her client to jail she should have 1) let him finish speaking and then make her argument; or 2) appeal (though it seems clear she would have lost).
I will say Iâm not a fan of his use of first names of attorneys though.
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The judge has a point. When a judge tells a lawyer to be quiet, itâs time to be quiet. Even if the judge is wrong.
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I agree, but based on the transcript it doesnât appear he was being demeaning or singling her out. He addresses the prosecutor by his first name too (and the bailiff). Seems like just a quirk on his part, but I think Ms. or Mr. ----- is far preferable.
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When is handcuffing an attorney in a court ever the proper choice? If she was in contempt, he could have had her escorted from the courtroom. Handcuffing her in the courtroom is not how a judge should ever handle an attorney appearing before him. This wasnât about maintaining order or decorum. It was about humiliating someone who pissed him off.
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A public defender shouldnât interrupt a judge and a judge has to retain order in the court. This story seems like âclick candyâ to elicit biased comments. Since I wasnât there, I cannot justifiably comment one way or the other.
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Looks like a fetal alcohol syndrome face. Or this guy:
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The only thing that lawyer was supposed to be doing, Judge, was representing her client to the limits of her ability and that is obviously what she was doing.
Never met a judge yet who didnât have an attitude problem - they think they are little tin gods.
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Soon to be on Trumpâs short list of candidates for the Supreme Court.
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You know, I was going to say this is a terrible camera still, probably caught in motion somehow⌠but then I went and found other images of the guy and⌠no⌠no itâs not. He really does look like a human Pug.
Iâm not casting any aspersions on his character based on his appearance, mind you - his actions provide plenty of basis - Iâm just floored by how strong the resemblance is.