Judge Reprimanded for Verbal Tirade in Court: 'I Asked You A F***ing Question'
Would you want this judge to sentence you?
A Seminole County, Florida judge is facing punishment from the state after directing a profane verbal tirade toward a man who entered his courtroom.
Judge Wayne Culver lost his temper with the man in a February hearing. The man had supposedly been interrupting proceedings and talking out of turn.
“Sir, I’m doing something. Can you shut up and sit down?”
Culver got even angrier when the man didn’t respond to another question.
“You want to be held in contempt and go to jail?”
WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some viewers may find offensive.
“I asked you a f****** question, a******!”
Both men would go on to apologize to one another later in the hearing.
The Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission is suspending Culver from the bench for 60 days for his conduct. He’s also receiving a public reprimand and will be required to complete anger management counseling.
This wasn’t the only courtroom outburst that landed Culver in hot water. In punishing him, the commission also cited Culver’s words to a disruptive litigant in January, according to WESH-TV.
In that instance, the judge told a disruptive man that his own statement amounted to “the most important words you’ll ever hear as long as you live as an organism on this planet.”
The commission decided that Culver’s level of “sarcasm and mockery” in that instance was unbecoming of a judge.
Culver went on to threaten the disruptive litigant with a jail sentence so lengthy that the county jail would be renamed after him.
Culver admitted that his conduct in court violated Florida’s code of judicial conduct, according to a report from the commission detailing his punishment.
“Judge Culver has admitted and agreed that his conduct… violated the code of Judicial Conduct,” the bar organization for Florida judges said.
If Culver spoke that way as a defendant in his own courtroom, it’s quite likely that he would serve jail time for contempt of court.
Standards of conduct for American judges require them to be dispassionate. Angrily cursing out a spectator of proceedings doesn’t exactly live up to these standards.
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