Posted on 07/27/2023 7:33:39 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
An Oklahoma judge was caught on video consistently using her phone during the trial of a murdered 2-year-old, as his mother cried on the stand testifying against her boyfriend.
Oklahoma District 23 Judge Traci Soderstrom has been accused of scrolling through social media, texting and even searching for a GIF during a trial last month, according to a courtroom surveillance video obtained by The Oklahoman.
Throughout the 50-minute-long video, Soderstrom holds her phone below the judge’s bench, texting or scrolling through Facebook, every once in a while jotting down notes while her phone remains lit on her lap.
At one point, Judith Danker, the woman testifying, reaches for a tissue to wipe her tears and blow her nose as the judge glances over at her and then back down to her phone to answer a text.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Judge Traci.
Someone has to view those cat videos.
After a quick image search, she may have been looking for the closest Golden Corral. 😏
TikTok programming takes time
Just another fraud pretending to give a damn about “justice”. If she can’t even be bothered to pay attention to the proceedings, what makes anyone think she cares about handing out a just ruling... on any case... ever.
A much needed purge of the entire system is what’s needed. Not that it will ever actually happen. All we can do is expose and try to marginalize these cretins to reduce the damage they do.
Case will be appealed if Martzall is convicted.
“On trial was Khristian Tyler Martzall, then the boyfriend of the boy’s mother, Judith Danker. She pled guilty to enabling child abuse under a plea deal in 2019 and testified against Martzall during the trial, which concluded with a second-degree manslaughter conviction for him.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rfRY1bjxcA
yeah it’s not just freepers.
How callous.
That woman has no soul.
If the lawyers are behaving and nobody is objecting there actually isn’t very much for a judge to do. I mean, yeah shouldn’t be doom scrolling on the phone, but it is probably a much less interesting job than TV makes it look.
When it is a jury trial, the judge is nothing but a referee and can only rule on actual legal issues (objections, jury instructions, evidence admission, etc.) and cannot interfere with the factual evidence presentation portion of the case. That’s the jury’s job to listen closely and decide on the facts. In any case, there is a transcript that the judge can read when the hearing is done.
“If the lawyers are behaving and nobody is objecting there actually isn’t very much for a judge to do.”
Correct. The judge isn’t supposed to be interjecting herself in the proceedings, throwing flags like a football ref. But she still needs to be paying attention or how can she properly respond to an objection?
I sat on a civil trial once with about four hours of recorded mindless medical testimony. Staying awake was a real challenge. At one point I watched the judge flat out take a nice nap for 15 minutes. One of the court recorders saw him nearly drooling and woke him up.
After three days of this tedious boredom we were preparing for day four and I watched the lawyers start to dance about in the waiting area outside the courtroom that morning before the courtroom was opened. A settlement was literally reached in the men’s room by the attorneys. Me and another juror were watching it all unfold and another juror sat down and said what’s up? I said unless we are way wrong we are about to get sent home and this trial has been settled. Sure enough, the judge called us to order and said a settlement was reached and we were dismissed. I hated civil trials!
That was my 2nd sentence.
This, on the same day that a W appointed judge overturns Bowe Berghdal’s court martial and another judge dismisses charges against (SlowBakedFuton) Sam Bankman-Fried.
Our fine justice system at work.
Two full days of my life wasted on a civil case that settled right as we were about to be told to convene and find a verdict. Since it was pretty clear where the Jury was headed that was going to take about 10 minutes. But we were spared that 10 minutes thanks to the hard work of the lawyers to settle so we could go home early.
I sat on one civil trial where a guy was suing his insurance company for failure to pay a claim. Essentially the guy set his house on fire, then claimed the fireman stole $5000 out of his freezer. The firemen and police found the bed of his truck full of straw and the “arsonist” had filled his house full of straw and set it on fire, except it went out or was put out quickly.
The insurance company refused to pay out anything because he hadn’t filed a claim or a criminal complaint against the fire department. If he had filed a claim they would have filed criminal charges for arson and fraud. Still he found an attorney that would take his money and file a civil suit. Judge gave us four instructions and if we answered no on any of them the trial was over. 1) Did the owner of the insurance policy file a claim in order to be paid for loses? NO, trial over. Deliberations took longer for me to write out the paperwork to hand it back to the judge than actual deliberations.
All my life, I’ve wanted to serve on a jury. Alas, my JD has had me struck from civil juries, and my having served as a LEO and an elected prosecutor has forced several defense lawyers to waste (or not…) a peremptory strike on me.
My late uncle was a cop, by brother-in-law was a cop and still I got selected time and again. My first tour of six months I served on ten trials which the judge at the time said was unheard of. After three or four where me and another guy in the pool both served he looked at me and said you think they would figure it out, up to that point we had found all the defendants guilty and stop picking us.
That being said I have found people not guilty and also questioned a judges instructions because they were in this case two sets of instructions that were word for word but for different levels of seriousness for jail time. He declared a mistrial and apologized to the jury and counsels and sent us home.
I guess I’m just lucky, I had to serve on a civil jury once (case of a little girl with cerebral palsy and in a wheelchair who was improperly transported to school on her bus and ended up seriously injured ... very very sad case that was pretty open and shut as to the liability but they dragged out the trial to the bitter end before settling).
My second stint was a criminal case about a guy who was shoplifting at a mall, I was an alternate juror meaning I had to sit in the entire trial until someone had to drop out and then they’d go to the alternates and select one, that’s when they decided I didn’t qualify because I have a neighbor who is a cop and they let me go (after a day of a trial).
My third stint was on a grand jury where I had to sit all day in a zoom meeting while they slowly selected people 5 or 6 at a time to be interviewed by the judge until they had enough. The filled the jury before the random number generator picked me which was good because grand jury is the worst, in my state it’s a six month commitment, one day a week. Brutal. But it was fun watching people try to get out of it and then come back into the zoom after the judge denied the request all ticked off and yelling about the judge while forgetting that their microphone was on. That was kinda fun.
Pro tip: if you want to get on a jury, live in Camden County NJ. Lots of people with a gripe, lots of criminals, lots of lawyers so lots of trials of all kinds.
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