A Florida judge is stepping down temporarily and seeking anger management after he instigated a physical altercation with a public defender in a courtroom on Monday.
Florida Judge John Murphy allegedly became furious during the scheduling of a trial when public defender Andrew Weinstock refused to waive his client’s constitutional right to a speedy trial. Murphy lambasted Weinstock and told him how much he is angering him before challenging him to step outside the courtroom and fight.
“You know, if I had a rock I would throw it at you right now,” Murphy said. “Stop pissing me off. Just sit down.”
“You know I’m the public defender,” Weinstock shot back. “I have a right to be here and I have a right to stand and represent my client.”
At that point, Murphy told Weinstock “If you want to fight, let’s just go out back and I’ll beat your ass.”
The two men stepped outside the courtroom where one was heard yelling, “You want to f– with me?” Weinstock later claimed that Murphy grabbed him by the collar and punched him in the head.
“According to the lawyer, the judge grabbed him about the collar as soon as he walked into the hallway and began punching him in the head, and the lawyer just tried to stop the blows,” Weinstock’s boss Blaise Trettis explained, via Reuters. “And the deputies came into the hallway and pulled the judge off the lawyer.”
Regardless of who was right or wrong, that is obviously some seriously disturbing behavior from a person who is supposed to remain objective and decide the fate of those who have been accused of a crime. But hey, we’ll take a great viral video any way we can get it.
H/T Toucher and Rich
