Municipal Judge Wilfredo Benitez is at the center of a controversy after he reportedly shouted profanities and cited his judicial position after being found passed out by the side of a road. Benitez was later found to be intoxicated. However, his charges were later thrown out by another judge.
Two state troopers Justin Kearns and Danny Kim found the judge passed out on the side of the road in his BMW and reportedly took three minutes just to wake him. When he came to, he activating the brake lights and the rear windshield wipers as he tried to open the window.
He then started to yell profanities that he is a “f***ing judge” and not some “drug addict” or “a drunk.” He also called one office a “dick.” A later breath test found Benitez’s blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit.
However, another New Jersey judge threw out the charges because on flaws in the police work.
The only reason that the public learned of the case was due to an ethics complaint, accusing him of misconduct. Not only did he use his judicial status, but threatened the troopers that “You’re wasting your time and you know it,. I’ll fight you. You know you’re being a dick. I will f–king fight you.”
In tossing the charges, Judge McGeady noted that the rules on the use of breath-testing devices requires that a defendant be observed for 20 uninterrupted minutes before the test is performed to ensure they had not chewed gum, vomited or did other acts that would undermine the test. There was no record of that procedure being followed.
McGeady also found that the prosecution failed to establish that Benitez’s statements and conduct was not the result of “sleep deprivation or having just been awakened.”
Hopefully, the state Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct will hold Benitez responsible for his grossly inappropriate conduct.
The iniquity in our system is as obvious as it is appalling. Both judges should be disbarred, given 400 hours community service cleaning puke and whatever else out of rear compartment of police vehicles, and the two officers involved should be meritoriosuly promoted to the next rank or position available.
Not in NJ. I lived there most of my life. It’s thoroughly corrupt to the core.
Political class pass. Judge should be removed, but doubt that will happen.
The law should be blind, but she isn’t.
How many times do we read about rogue judges? Attorneys can’t really complain, because if the judge is not removed, they’ll have to try cases before them again. Can we really say that well-connected politicians and judges really do live under the same set of laws that the rest of us do?
LAW ENFORCEMENT IN THE INLAND EMPIRE
“Riverside police chief faces DUI counts in car wreck” (Ultimately charges were dropped).
By Alicia Robinson | arobinson@scng.com and Special To The Press-Enterprise | The Orange County Register
March 23, 2010 at 12:52 pm
“In the hours before officers stopped him last month, Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach mixed 11 drinks with up to five prescription medications, leaving him so intoxicated he had no idea where he was — or that he’d wrecked his city-issued car, authorities said.
Leach, 62, was charged Monday with misdemeanor driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and driving with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit. He was not arrested, but ordered to appear in court for arraignment Thursday.
Officially, he remains on leave as he seeks a medical retirement. He did not respond to calls for comment.”
_________
Riverside, CA, is next door to the site of the mass shooting:
SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: Gunmen kill 14 ‘as if they were on a mission’
By Press-Enterprise Staff Reports | Press-Enterprise
January 14, 2016 at 10:19 am
Instead, a holiday gathering of San Bernardino County employees at a center dedicated to helping the disabled became a scene of terror and carnage Wednesday, Dec. 2, when two — as many as three — gunmen opened fire, killing 14 and wounding 17 in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in three years.
Well, as George Orwell noted so long ago, some animals are more equal than others.
The video of the incident should be played before every case is adjudicated ./and as a request by any defendant’s attorney or by the defendant representing oneself.
This week. A defendant called before his court and asked to make a plea should say: “I’m a fuc__g defendant! Ich mochter ein double zimmer fur ein nach!”
More of the two-tiered justice system: ordinary citizen, guilty; extraordinary judge, not guilty. Every breathalyzer certified trooper knows to wait the 20 minutes with perp under observation and how this was avoided in this case makes me think the fix was in. What’s wrong with testimony? But again it was Jersey.
Ad Gomer Pyle would say, “Sooprise! Sooprise! Sooprise!” New Jersey Democrats’ political machine at work.
Compared to what’s going on in DC with “collusion” this is comic relief.
Oh my, so he just dropped his kids off at school??? What time of night was it! The Judge has earned an Irish Poem!
O-noez! O-noez! O-noez! ???
An Irish Poem by Squeeky Fromm
There once was a judge named Benitez,
Who dint want to do what the Cop says!
He did not show class – – –
They arrested his a$$,
Before he could even say “Oyez!”
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
You call that a limerick?!
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/3/3f/Thefin.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130831064600
Your POV is great, Prof. Turley, but the typos diminish it. Maybe hire a proofreader. I doubt it’d cost much.
Yes. Hire a proof reader. Every column has problems.
He talks these into a speech to text program.
Then he doesn’t correct the program’s typos.
Is it endearing, or infuriating.
Maybe both.
It’s not that big a deal.
Too big to be convicted!!! If it were you or me, we would be at least doing community service.