Nothing quite as weird has made the news since the 2004 case of the now former Oklahoma District Court Judge Donald Thompson who was caught in the act pumping something other than iron while berobed and on the bench and self-pleasurably presiding within earshot of a clerk, trial witnesses and his longtime court reporter.
According to the Complaint subsequently filed by the Oklahoma Attorney General, “Visitors to Thompson’s Creek County courtroom reported hearing a “swooshing” sound coming from the bench, a noise the court reporter said “sounded like a blood pressure cuff being pumped up.”
The petition for Judge Thompson’s removal charged him with violation of Canons 1, 2 and 3 of the Code of Judicial Conduct and for conduct amounting to moral turpitude as defined by the Oklahoma Constitution. For more than you ever wanted to know about the case, also see “Pump” Judge Gets Popped” and “Here Comes The Judge” | The Smoking Gun.
“It’s a public restroom.”
Judge Rhonda Hollander
But last Thursday, there was a news report that rivals the former Oklahoman jurist’s non-musical way to “PUMP IT UP.”
Admittedly, it amounts to “T.M.I.” or ‘too much information.’ But after my last blog post, which ran some 1500 words about 2 Nevada Supreme Court decisions, it’s time to lighten things up.
The news stories involved a Florida traffic court jurist named Rhonda Hollander arrested for taking cell phone photographs of a man who was in the act of availing of himself of a courthouse urinal. In explaining herself to the cops, the judge supposedly said no laws were broken and that “it was a public restroom.”
Refusing to surrender her cell phone, Judge Hollander was also accused of taking pictures of the arresting officer and also of allegedly biting his finger when he pointed it at her and told her to stop.
Innocent until proven guilty, she was eventually released on $700 bail. See “Florida traffic court judge Rhonda Hollander arrested “and “Traffic Court” « Above the Law: A Legal Tabloid.
Fortunately for our system, such reports are newsworthy because they’re so out-of-the-ordinary. Moreover, there’s no way anyone could make this stuff up.
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