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Judge slams victims for tot's 'black men' fear
Andrew Wolfson, @adwolfson 11:29 p.m. EDT April 10, 2015
Jordan and Tommy Gray's 3-year-old daughter was watching "SpongeBob" when two armed men broke into their home near Buechel on March 21, 2013, and robbed them at gunpoint.
Two years later, when one of the offenders was about to be sentenced, Jordan wrote in a victim impact statement that her daughter was still "in constant fear of black men." Both robbers were African-American.
In an email, Ronald Rotunda, a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and the author of a widely used course book on legal ethics, said Stevens violated the Code of Judicial Conduct, both by using the prestige of his office to further his personal interests and by commenting on a pending case on Facebook. "The judge, acting like a pop psychologist, decides to attack the little girl and her parents," Rotunda said. "Then, after the judge … has a chance to cool down … he goes on Facebook and does it all over again.
The judge should be a little more judicious." Jeffrey Shaman, who teaches at Chicago's DePaul University law school and once ran the Center for Judicial Conduct Organizations, said judicial criticism of victim impact statements could discourage victims from "participating in the criminal justice system and ensuring that their voices will be heard."
Indiana University law professor Charles Geyh said that while it is not intrinsically wrong for a judge to criticize a victim — such as the instigator of a bar fight — given Stevens' emotional reaction in court and on Facebook, he arguably should have disqualified himself because his impartiality might be questioned.
"I was cautioning the parents against allowing racial stereotypes to impact their behavior and that of their child," he said.
Which is WHY you should shoot to kill EVERY time you get a similar break in.THAT way some one else doesn't have to suffer from this 'Catch and Release" judicial system.