Academic

?Judge Reprimanded for Calling Three Black Female PDs ?The Supremes??

By Ann Bartow

Jeebus, I thought that was a headline from an Onion article but it wasn’t. Here’s the ABA Journal account:

A Maryland judge has been reprimanded for calling three black female public defenders ?The Supremes? and telling a defendant to get ?an experienced male attorney.?

The Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities said the remarks by Judge W. Kennedy Boone III were “undignified and disparaging,” the Hagerstown Herald-Mail reports.

Boone made his comments during an April hearing for a defendant accused of assault who wanted to replace his public defender. Boone told the commission that he made the comments in an effort to protect the three PDs from having to represent a difficult, streetwise and manipulative defendant.

Boone apologized to the women and offered to recuse himself from their future cases. He acknowledged his comments were “highly suggestive, if not indicative … of racial and sexual bias.”

“I lost it that day, at that time,” he told the newspaper. “At the end of the day, I felt terrible. ? “The buck stops here when I’m wrong.”

I guess I’m glad he recognizes he was wrong. Why he remains on the bench is a little perplexing, though, to put it mildly.

–Ann Bartow, with thanks to reader M. for the link.

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on February 02, 2008 (boomark / email).