Mississippi Chancery Judge Talmadge Littlejohn means it when he asks everyone to stand and say the pledge of allegiance. When attorney Danny Lampley of Oxford stood but did not recite, Littlejohn threw him in jail.
Littlejohn was just honored by the Mississippi bar for 50 years in public service.
Lampley was jailed from 9:40 a.m. and released about 2:30 p.m. on the judge’s orders. However, the reported order below says that Lampley would not be released until he recited the pledge for the judge.
The contempt sanction is, in my view, both injudicious and unconstitutional. Requiring an attorney to recite the pledge is a violation of his free speech rights. There is no question that an attorney must comply with court orders and that a judge is given considerable leeway in running his courtroom. However, that does not include monitoring pledge recitals.
Here is the order, which I found on The Agitator:
BE IT REMEMBERED, this date, the Court having ordered all present in the courtroom to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegience, and having found that Danny Lampley, Attorney at Law, failed and refused to do so, finds said Danny Lampley to be in criminal contempt of court.
IT IS FURTHER ORDED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED, that Danny Lampley shall purge himself of said criminal contempt by complying with the order of this Court by standing and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in open court.
Source: Clarion Ledger
Kudos: Reddit
This judge should be removed immediately. He obviously is not qualified to interpret the laws of this country.
Mike
Name one thing Ive said that leads you to think I want to go back to slavery days.—-Just one
It should be noted that the bar made no claim as to the quality of the service just the quantity.
I suggest that 50 years is long enough for Judge Littlejohn.
Dorkus rectum maximus … or in American English, this judge is an anal cavity … in street talk … well, never mind …
South Carolina is not far behind.
http://www.care2.com/causes/civil-rights/blog/sc-jail-lets-inmates-only-read-bible/
Finally,
Larry and I agree on something, though for different reasons. Larry who wants to go back to the days of slavery, is correct in assuming the “Pledge” unconstitutional and on that bare fact alone I agre with him. I have never been comfortable, since elementary school with having to recite the pledge. This was furthered by the insertion of “Under God.” I grew up in the McCarthy Era, with “left wing” parents and so the totalitarian trappings of the McCarthy-ites was bitter to experience. how similar they were in practice to those of the Stalinists they so bitterly opposed.