Florida 80-Year-Old Woman Charms Judge and Courtroom Impromptu “Stand Up Routine”

Screen Shot 2015-02-14 at 7.26.08 AMThere are some people who really do not need counsel. Eighty-year-old Dolores Sheinis entirely charms Judge John Hurley in the course of setting a home monitoring condition and protective order.


The case involves her former husband and what appears to be an apartment that predated their divorce.

My favorite moment is when Judge Hurley says: ‘You’ve brightened my day m’am'” and she responds “That’s what the last guy said.”

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UPDATE: Sheinis appears to have later asked that she be sent to a mental health facility for observation, which the judge ordered.

42 thoughts on “Florida 80-Year-Old Woman Charms Judge and Courtroom Impromptu “Stand Up Routine””

  1. dust bunny above….how does ‘observation’ work? She’s fine one minute then the next you know she’s changed her tude. What are the intervening factors….the real ones. For intance when I interact I am cool…but if some one tries to rip me off I stick up for myself. Or like my mil she’s 84 and as sharp as a tack. She goes to md and if they treat her like an inferior sheeple she’ll go for what for. Turn on a dime. It’s actually a quality and characteristic of self preservation. A fundamental right. So how are they going to observe this woman…give her bad food and…oops if she complains in a pist off way she must be nuts? If the lady in this article has an illness….they ought to be ashamed at laughing at her. It’s like laughinging at some one falling. Or a retarded person. They were laughing cuz she is lucid. But that doesn’t stop them for little reason sending her to the shrinks. Who will give her seroquel. Then she’ll die. Nazis. Give her a fine or a month in jail whatever the penalty is for violating an ancient restaining order. But to hand to the shrinks is a death sentence. Cuz she has medicare and dollar signs all over her.

  2. I want to see an interview of Judge Hurley when he is 80. Not an interview but a strong cross examination under oath. He is bitching about this woman for harassing her husband. I would like to ask him how many people he put in jail, in mental hospitals or cemeteries. He has done a lot more damage than this lady has done. He sits up there on his high horse with the camera recording all and does not realize what a Nazi he is. When he gets his interview at the Pearly Gates the charges will begin with: itShay don’t stink; bigot; aggotFay; dumbitShay as toast; ego centric; wife beater; bad dad; terrible judge of others. He will be off to Hell in a Handbasket. As for that lawyer there who rolled over like Beethoven, well, he needs to go into the divorce business now.

    Can someone please send this blog to the Judge?

  3. What the hell is wrong with people who think 80 is “old?” Jeez, people. Ageism is another kind of discrimination. I have a certain fondness for smart-ass (and smart) women–of any age. I was married to one for 55 years. Older women are far more interesting to me than younger ones. We can remember the same stuff….music…headlines….movies, WW2, etc.

    Inga, I recognized your avatar immediately. Love it, and although we have not met in person, I think you picked a good one. Just don’t end up like she did.

    As for me, dementia is definitely not one of my problems. I have had this fantasy for some time that if they ever send me for a mental competency exam, of victimizing some hapless psychiatrist or psychologist. My granddaughter says she thinks it interesting that the Don Equis guy and I are never seen in the same room at the same time.

    1. Chuck – “we” never see dementia as being one of our problems. However, it sneaks right up on us. Soon your fantasy will be if you can remember enough of the right answers on the dementia test to pass it. You are getting to the point where some of the relatives will be sucking up to you to get in the will. I would be cautious about the granddaughter. Get an outside opinion.

  4. Diane, my “icon” is a famous person. Quite the ‘character’ herself. Guess who she is. Inga is my real name. As for DBQ, she rules the dust bunnies under the beds and in her mind.

  5. Thank you, Paul. I medical assistant/secretary for the Senior Flight Surgeon in the Medical Department of a major commercial airline for almost 9 years. I have seen young, sunny tempered flight attendants turn sour in a flash, curmudgeonly Captains get a little rank, and pull a little rank. When we had a flight kitchen, temperamental chefs could be quite mercurial.I know a little about people who are just a few bubbles off plumb or are pleasant but have an unpredictably short fuse. If I wanted to while a way a few moments walking on the dark side, there was E.A.P (employees assistance program) right next door

    For that matter, in 1950 -1952 I was secretary in the Social Sciences Department at UCSB while my husband was going to school, one of our full professors,Dr. Gwynne Nettler, was adding a little excitement to his mundane existence – and a little profit too. As a cat burglar in posh neighborhoods. What is worse, he was bringing me long lists of “things he wanted to get rid of” – having me make lists posted around campus to sell his loot. I may have been an unwitting accessory after the fact. Nettler was Head of the Pacific Sociological Society..most popular teacher on campus. Guggenheim fellowship -. One morning he calls office to cancel his classes as he is in jail. His girlfriend ratted him out. Gwynne was popular,flamboyant, handsome, debonair, drove a navy blue Cadillac convertible – top down and taught Crime and Punishment to a packed class, Nettler was written up in TIME magazine when caught robbing homes.. The whole gig was treated as a kind of Robin Hood thing.

    You would have to say someone who would do that is just not hooked up like the rest of us but no one thought he was nuts. (Except me) He went on to Montreal or some place in Canada after he got out of Stony Lonesome here and became, get this, a criminologist. Gwynne Nettler was something that was not normal, but his profession, good looks, a charismatic personality stood him in good stead. Was he a criminal or just nuts to risk his career?

    All I am saying is the old lady may or may not be demented, but it will be hung on her because of her age and behavior. Next they will be saying she has Alzheimer’s – when it is a medical fact that Alzheimer’s cannot be definitively diagnosed except on autopsy and how may families of 80 year olds pop for the added expense of an autopsy? You can “rule out” till the cows come home, but you can’t call it Alzheimer’s until you crack the skull and mess around in the brain around looking for rods and tangles characteristic of . . .google it. I once called Alzheimer’s Foundation and asked them if they could diagnose it on a living patient. NO. Then why do you say in your commercials..that people have Alzheimer’s, you can only state that a corpse had it…”We have to or our research money would dry up.” Oh.

    We are playing a game of “maybe, maybe” here.Maybe she was a retired vaudevillian and still thinks she can knock ’em dead. I was only countering all the professionals on this site who seem to have it wired – and having a little fun at it. Forgetting that levity is no laughing matter.

    I am done now, I relinquish the floor to the experts, the Hon. Dust Bunny Queen and Inga, she of the ornate coiffure and pristine profile.I wonder if a study has ever been done on cute names and icons?

  6. My ace-in-the-hole, if I were ever “evaluated”, at my age, would be to challenge the no-hoper psych major (who landed in a crummy job), to computer brain games. They gotta beat me before they can grade me. Then I would ask what they knew about the Whiskey Rebellion and The War of 1812. And what the Louisiana Purchase cost and meant to the U.S. We live in an incredibly stupid era, today. My most recent “brain age” on tests was 28. That doesn’t make me smart – it makes me quick They are really geared to reaction time, not intelligence – easy to beat. I wasn’t flattered by the score, as a lot of 28 year olds today are sitting at Starbucks recovering from their most recent failed job interview after being told they were just not a good “fit”.

    Quite a few years ago, my brother, who lived atop Mt. Ego and belonged to Mensa Society, had an application sent to me (to prove his childhood suspicion – that he was smarter). Mensa, at the time, wanted $25 to “process” the test/application. I wrote across it that I had already taken a similar test from a literature pocket on a plane and I knew how smart I was and if they wanted to know, it was going to cost them more than $25 to find out. (I didn’t say I was smart – just smart-ass!) Now the Mensans will want me institutionalized because I stiffed them back in 1965. I know my brother did.

    Maybe the poor soul in Florida was merely railing at old age in a public forum. She made a mistake putting herself in a county that nearly overturned an election with the butterfly ballot they could not understand. Now she is being judged by her unserious, antic behavior in a court of law, her disheveled appearance (who looks great in prison garb?) and her obvious suffering from the ravages of time. But lucky Dolores! She now gets to be evaluated by an entire population who have not been 80 yet. Here is an evaluation. Maybe she is just cranky at possibly losing her apartment. No, it can’t be that easy – she must be senile and nuts and have some kind of martial arts ability and a concealed carry permit and her ex in the cross-hairs. Although, I do have to say this woman has an amazing ability to hold a grudge if she is still rankled over a 31 year old split up.

  7. Daughter says, “she can be charming and funny but turn mean in a second. . .” Hell, that could get half the population institutionalized – – and before age 80! Someone in this family wants some real estate. But first, they have to evict the old lady.

    I am 87. I don’t turn mean, but it doesn’t take much to release my inner smart-ass! Which can be devastating

  8. And if that yerk off on her right standing up is supposed to be her lawyer then he needs to be dis barred. File a writ to get her out of psych ward before it kills her. This guy can not speak up. What a dork.

  9. Hubbie poo needs to be separated from her. Another state. She needs to be back home tomorrow. So what if she is a bit wacko. Mental health treatment is for the rest of society not for the patient. It is a way to shut them up. Let her yak. Give her a talk show on local radio. Put the Judge on the psych ward for six months. No time off for good behavior. Psych ward is prison without the gray suit or strip suit.

    Call the Men in The White Suits! For the Judge not this old lady.

  10. This woman had seven children. I wonder where her kids are in this family drama? I would hope that at least one of them would be her advocate. People that age need to have supportive family when they get hurled into the ” system” against their will. I saw many feisty old folks get over medicated and change from an elderly person with some mild dementia to a drooling slack jawed shell of themselves. I wish there was more information about what got her arrested to begin with. What did she do to violate the restraining order? I worked on gero psych units and Alzheimer’s units for some of my nursing years. These folks are fragile and it doesn’t take much for them to lose what cognition they have. My best wishes for this poor lady.

  11. DBQ, OMG! This post is a real ink blot test. Having helped women get restraining orders against abusive, crazy, stalking, men I can assure people, as you stated so well, they are not issued w/o evidence and good reason. I have never helped a man get one against a woman. I imagine, because of the “buck up buttercup” world men live in, he had to have serious evidence. But, wow oh wow, did this one strike a nerve!!!

  12. She is not being incarcerated in a mental institution/nut house. She has been sent for observation and evaluation and will be back in court after she has been evaluated. If she has mental issues, this is the best way to find out and get her some treatment.

    I’ve dealt with some very crazy people in my life who are sweet as pie one moment and then like a light switch flipped on, turn vicious and even violent. She might be a sweet person in public and a terror to her family outside of the public eye. Observation by professional mental health care providers is the way to find out.

  13. Well, there was and is a restraining order. The court doesn’t issue these for no reason. She violated the restraining order. Her ex husband didn’t violate it. She did.

  14. Hurley. Someone hurl him off a bridge. Sent an 80 year old lady to a mental facility. He is one of those FL itShay don’t stink people. Heil Hitler.

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