If the judges over in Broward County are having trouble staying sober, it appears that anger management may be the challenge for judges in Brevard County, Florida. Judge John Murphy has been accused of saying that he wanted to throw a rock at a public defender and then saying that he wanted to meet him behind the courtroom to “beat your ass.” According to public defender Andrew Weinstock, he proceeded to try to do precisely that. However, no criminal charges have been brought against Murphy and there is no reported judicial discipline proceeding.
Murphy was allegedly upset that Weinstock would not get his client to waive his right to a speedy trial. In the video below, he tells Weinstein “You know, if I had a rock I would throw it at you right now.” He then told Weinstock to “Stop pissing me off. Just sit down.” Then it allegedly went from insulting to gladiatorial with Murphy quoted as saying “If you want to fight, let’s go out back and I’ll just beat your ass.”
The two then left the courtroom. While the two could not be seen, the courtroom camera captured sounds of a scuffle and loud thuds — even producing applause from the courtroom when the fighting seemed to end. It would seem like an April Fool’s joke but it wasn’t April and it was no joke.
In the video, Murphy clearly loses his sense of control and decorum. Weinstein seems to agree when the judge asks him to step outside and immediately follows Murphy. However, Weinstock’s supervisor Blaise Trettis, public defender of the 18th Judicial Court said that Weinstock thought that they were going to just talk things through but that “immediately upon entering the hallway he was grabbed by the collar and began to be struck. There was no discussion, no talk, not even time for anything. Just as soon as they’re in the hallway, the attorney was grabbed.” Two deputies reportedly broke up the fight and Weinstein was reassigned and Murphy went back and retook the bench to continue with cases.
The question is, if Trettis and Weinstein maintain that this was an unprovoked attack, why was there no criminal charge. Fights in courthouses are routinely treated more severely than other assaults. Moreover, if Murphy did make these statements, it is clearly a violation of judicial ethics. What makes that violation even more egregious is that it was allegedly over pressure to get someone to waive a constitutional right.
I assume that judicial discipline will come but I am curious as to how the deputies concluded that no criminal act occurred.
John C. Murphy was elected in September of 2006 and re-elected in 2012 for a term that expires on January 8, 2019. He is a graduate from the University of Dayton School of Law. Before taking the bench, he worked at his father’s law firm, Betten, Murphy & Weiss, Attorneys, P.A.
Source: WFTV
JT: “It would seem like an April Fool’s joke but it wasn’t April and it was no joke.
Ah but there WERE two fools.
As a public defender, I resent the comment that public defenders pressure our clients to plead guilty. I, personally, have never pressured a client to plead guilty. The fact that you see us handle lots of guilty pleas, is because we handle lots of clients. I would venture to say we settle a comparable rate of cases with guilty pleas as the private bar. You really should quit propagating an ugly myth that can’t be further from the truth.
Heather Estes wrote: “As a public defender, I resent the comment that public defenders pressure our clients to plead guilty. I, personally, have never pressured a client to plead guilty.”
Heather, I am glad to hear you are a public defender who does not pressure your clients to plead guilty. Many public defender’s tell their clients, even when they are being told that their client is innocent, that even if they are innocent, it is much easier to just plead no contest and get out on probation. They are assured that they are not admitting guilt, just agreeing not to fight the charge. They are told that if they choose to go to trial and they don’t have bail money, then they will have to stay in jail weeks or even months until their trial, and if they lose, they will face a long prison term. They are told, on the other hand, “if you plead no contest, you will go home today on probation.” It sounds like a sweet deal to most poor people. All they want to do is go home.
What they are not told is that if they are caught with a beer in their hand, fail a urine test, miss meeting their probation officer because they don’t have the monthly fee, or some other way of violating their probation, then off to prison they go. They also are not told that they will no longer qualify for public housing. I work with a lot of homeless and poor people, and so many have had their lives ruined over pleading no contest. I know one young man who simply interrupted a city council meeting. He plead guilty in exchange for 3 years probation. Later that month, they caught him with a beer in his hand, so the probation changed to 3 years in prison. He did the time.
What I wish is that public defenders started with the basic question: are you innocent or are you guilty? Then they should tell their clients that if they are innocent, they should plead innocent. But if they do that, then these are the risks. Very few public defenders take this approach. I hope you do. So many times they tell me that the public defender never even asked them about their innocence or guilt. They tell them it doesn’t matter.
I’m working with someone right now that is having a very difficult time getting housing because she pled no contest to a beefed up charge more than ten years ago because she would not tell the policeman what he wanted to know about a neighbor. Another person I am helping spent 7 years in prison for a similar situation, where she would not inform on her boyfriend. All the time, poor people plead no contest with no idea how that plea will haunt them for the rest of their lives when they seek housing and jobs.
I assume someone already mentioned ‘Florida.’ As a stand your ground state, maybe the next devolutionary step in the justice system is duels; choosing from fisticuffs, swords or guns? Might save the Florida taxpayers some prison costs and add to the state’s tourism bounty.
Florida again. Along with the Duke incident, the baby in Georgia, the botched execution in Oklahoma and anything in Texas, I’m beginning to think that Mr. Lincoln did us all a disservice by not allowing the South to succeed.
ICE in Texas is transporting illegal aliens into Arizona and dropping them off at bus stops.
This is certainly a case of judicial misconduct. As for the criminal matter, the public defender probably did not want to press charges.
Jeez. In case you observers have failed to observe, there is a good chance the high number of problems with judges in Fla. can be traced to education. Check out the law schools of these elected judges. Notice how many went to schools you never heard of? Unranked schools. Do You Think this has a correlation? Yes it does.
Now, if it’s a cause is a separate matter, and can be looked at on a one on one basis. But there are well over 100 ranked law schools in the US. Why are so many (elected) judges in, esp. S. Fla., from schools that are unranked? It’s not whether they are good or bad people, but do you want someone who pulled a 2.9 GPA as a Criminal Justice major at Rollins College, and got a degree from a private law school ($$) that accepts almost anyone interpreting the law?
When you go to a law school that “teaches for the Bar” you are not considering folks who sat in classes for 3 years at Yale. Or even Washingon & Lee or American. Or even U. of Richmond or Catholic Univ. These are people who didn’t do well educationally. They are not bad, evil, etc., but they are the folks in college you didn’t think very bright. And now they are judges.
People on this site, and Turley, talk about many issues in American Law. But the proliferation of attorney’s from law schools that are jokes is a major problem. And what is done about it- the accreditation of more such schools? A law school aimed at black students, a law school aimed at Hispanic students. How about we do the same for doctors (M.D.’s)? Why is education for a veterinarian much, much more credible in the US than for an attorney?
This can be done the right way. Florida Internstional University’s law school is a case in point. Get good people, go slow, build a reputation, start out with small classes and be patient. Within 15 yrs FIU has built itself into a respectable, ranked law school. No matter to whom it was designed to cater.
Instead: put up some money, find lawyers who want to be called professors, go heavy on adjunct faculty, and accept 300 people into every class. Use those political connections, etc. & get accredited. What is 300 x $45,000? Yeah, doesn’t take too long to make back the original investment.
Just because law has entered a down phase means little. Instead of 300 x $45,000, it can be 175 x $45,000. As long as the really expensive fixed expenses have been paid (building, library) that $8m./yr coming in will hold the schools quite well while they wait out a decade or two of a downturn. Even in those bad times some “university” will be clearing $1m-$2m every year.
Warspite wrote: “In case you observers have failed to observe, there is a good chance the high number of problems with judges in Fla. can be traced to education. Check out the law schools of these elected judges.”
It is my understanding that in Florida there are no educational requirements to be elected as a judge. All you have to do is swear that you have read and understand the requirements of the Florida Code of Judicial Conduct, and then you basically just meet the requirements set by the supervisor of elections.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0100-0199/0105/Sections/0105.031.html
Sicko judge.
JERRY, JERRY, JERRY, JERRY!
This used to be called ‘mutual combat’ and I can see the cops letting it go.
A public defender has a duty to defend the public. A fist fight is part of the duty. He should have cold cocked the judge and left him on the corridor floor. Then kicked him in the groin for trying to take away his client’s rights. They need a big burley PD in that county. If you are gonna be a bear, be a grizzly.
Ditto, all of the above. The racism, misogyny, bigotry of all kinds, favoritism in favor of the wealthy and corporations,, and the blatant anti-contitutionalism of the system is so apparent in the civil and criminal “justice” system for all to see if they have eyes and ears to hear.
gentlemanguy, As a fellow Texan, I have to protest about our ability to remove bad and corrupt judges. Thanks to the GOP, we still have the worst judge in Texas history as Chief justice of the Court of Criminal Appeals, Sharon Keller. The system is NOT working at all. It is a sad commentary on the GOP that they have not removed her or even had some more qualified persons run against her. It seems that they WANT such people as these kinds of judges.
Another example of the trend in our “justice system” that allows government officials to do with impunity and immunity, it appears, that for which an average human would suffer imprisonment and loss of employment. If the judge was not the aggressor in the matter you can be sure the attorney would now be in jail for assaulting him.
The judge should be prosecuted and subject to judicial discipline and the officers who allowed him to get away with this should be fired.
Sometimes these judges are like out of control wrestlers.
Clearly none of this behavior is excusable and the judge should be appropriately dealt with but I would really like to have the previous 30 seconds of this video. From the tone of the exchange at the very beginning it seems there was a severe lack of decorum by the public defender as well.
Reminds me of a magistrate we had who temporarily sat on the bench while the people of Parker County had time to elect a real man to the job. Today Trey likes to call himself a judge but a temporary appointment falls short of being duly elected by the people. Trey Loftin thought he could change the constitution and would tell citizens from the bench that they had no constitutional right. When the election time came, Trey Loftin said it was his way or the highway. The people of parker County said, “Hit the road Trey, and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more , no more!!!” That is why we elect judges in Texas, so we can get rid of the bad ones.
To begin with, we must call this incident what it was. This was NOT a fight. This was an ASSAULT.
The judge not only threatened the public defender (because he refused to talk his client into giving waiving his constitutional right to a speedy trial) but worse, then the judge threatened to kick the attorneys ass.
The judge further taunted the attorney asking him to follow him outside. Once outside of that court room and inside the judge’s chamber, the judge closed the door and proceeded to assault the attorney.
The judge had one hand on the attorney’s person to hold him in place and with the other hand, he repeatedly punched the attorney in the head. Why did the court room applaud? Because they foolishly thought it would positively affect their cases.
The public defender had previously and recently told his supervisor, Blaise Trettis that the judge had been intimidating him. Mainstream media repeatedly states that the two men had a fight. They did not. This was an assault by John C. Murphy on the person of Daniel Weinstock.
The attorney, Daniel Weinstock was assaulted by judge John C. Murphy. The attorney did not return any blows. He was hit several times in the head and he never returned any blows.
And what’s worse is that the reason behind why the judge beat the public defender, was because he strongly insisted that the public defender, convince his client to give up his constitutional right to a speedy trial and the public defender refused. The judge then physically pummeled the attorney.
This was NOT a fight. It was an ASSAULT.
This judge needs to be removed. This defendant and anyone else represented by this attorney isn’t likely to get a fair hearing in front of this judge.
Wow, are we sure don’t just want to let Florida secede? Would it really be all that bad?
Wow! Unbelievably unprofessional. No wonder public defenders always seem to talk their defendants into pleading guilty or no contest even when they are innocent. Kudos to this public defender.