ABC News reported TV personality Judge Joe Brown has been sentenced to five days in a Memphis jail for contempt of court.
Judge Joe Brown told the ABC News interviewer he was visiting the Juvenile court in Memphis, Tennessee to see how it was operating, as he had done with other courts in the area; and he was approached by a woman who asked him to take a look at her child support case and when he took a look at the case, he felt it was his obligation to do so because of a pledge he had made to “protect womanhood and promote manhood.”
In my opinion Judge Brown poked his nose into something that he should not have at the time; he should have stepped back and told the woman he could not get involved in the case since another Judge was handling it in the courts. He didn’t have any special privileges to get involved in the case in the court and he definitely should not have gotten involved.
Judge Brown looked through the woman’s case and then he said, “I almost felt nauseated as I looked at it;” and he added he believed the case never should have gone forward, and saying, “I insisted that the woman’s charges be dismissed, He began talking about, I’m not an attorney so-and-so, and saying, “You know it’s wrong…you’re better than this.”
Judge Brown kept stating his belief’s until he was found in contempt of court and sentenced to five days in jail; though the former TV personality kept insisting the man presiding over the case was not a judge, but a lawyer who had “no” authority to do anything more than “fine” him. The office of the Shelby County Court Clerk informed ABC that the magistrate has the “full” authority of the court sentencing.
The former TV judge disrupted child support cases of individuals according to Dan Michael, chief magistrate of Juvenile Court; in which he called, “very serious matters,” and he also stated there is a hearing scheduled for April 4 in criminal court to discuss Brown’s case.
It’s my opinion if we have judge’s doing this throughout our country it is showing disrespect for our laws and it backs up and causes conflict in ongoing cases. No judge should have the right to intercede in another judge’s case…in my opinion it appears this is a law breaker for sure.
Judge Brown stated, however, he should not have been in jail, much less for five hours; and stating however, it does not seem the time spent there was all that bad.
Brown said, “I shook hands and took pictures with the staff down there, the deputy jailers and shook hands with inmates,” and adding, he didn’t make a phone call because of a lack to memorize phone numbers. “They had me in jail detention assignment down on the first floor. They were getting ready to take me upstairs “to a cell” and I told them, “Oh no you’re not…because you put your sheriff in complicity for what I might do to sue you and it’s getting doubled if I go up there.”
It amazes me how a judge could not see this was not the appropriate actions for him to take and it causes me to have concerns about our court system.
Judge Brown had comments to make about the cash he had turned over to the authorities when he was placed in jail by stating he was given a check that would clear in 10 days. He stated he was offered food but was advised “not” to eat it. He didn’t say who had told him not to eat the food; but explaining, “They said because the food was now privatized and too many people have been hospitalized for food poisoning.”
Judge Brown is running for political office, Shelby County D.A., and he is laughing off criticisms he was arrested as a publicity stunt.
Barbara Kasey Smith is the writer of this article and it is based on an ABC News report.
Source:
ABC News.Com