Posted on 07/02/2005 10:17:58 AM PDT by veronica
It may have been an inelegant description, but Stephen Caruso said he thought he was just being honest on Thursday afternoon when a judge asked if he could be fair and impartial toward a defendant on trial for kidnapping. No, Mr. Caruso said during the voir dire portion of jury selection. "I have been held up three times at gunpoint," he said according to transcripts, adding, "I am already looking at him; I think he is a scumbag."
Judge William A. Wetzel of Manhattan Criminal Court did not appreciate Mr. Caruso's candor, though, and ordered him held in contempt of court. "That is an insult not only to him, but to the other people in the room and me," Judge Wetzel said, before ordering Mr. Caruso to come back the next day.
But when Mr. Caruso returned with a lawyer yesterday and apologized for his choice of words, Judge Wetzel was not inclined to forgiveness. "I've interviewed upwards of 15,000 jurors and I have never experienced such an inappropriately vulgar, contemptuous occurrence," he said. He then told Mr. Caruso, 27, a financial planner from the Upper East Side, to return to court on July 18 and face the prospect of a $1,000 fine or up to 30 days in jail.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Yet another judge gone berserk.
Thought Crime
They think they are Gods. This is beyond the pale.
freedom of speech alive and well in NY - shame you can't call a scumbag a scumbag anymore
Boy, that judge is a scumbag...
Better to lie, I guess...
In addition to being the victim of two armed robberies while he was a college student in New Orleans, Mr. Caruso, 27, said he was riding a public bus there when it was held up by a gunman.
The trial, which involves a man accused of pushing someone into a car at gunpoint, "just brought up a lot of emotions and memories," he said, explaining his unfortunate choice of words."
Easy... I'd like to see a replay. Making an ourtrageously biased statement could very easily be taken as a way of avoiding jury duty.
Potential jurors are treated worse than the perps.
This guy doesn't even get a jury trial of his own, and will probably spend more time in jail than the kidnapping perp.
Translated: "That is an insult to me," Judge Wetzel said.
Pompous ass.
Judge Wetzel is wrong.
Well .. he could have said the same thing by saying it would be difficult for him to be impartial because he'd been held up 3 times. But .. to continue and disparage the "criminal" .. not good.
People need to understand .. we're dealing with idiots who love the criminal.
Inelegant, but honest. Simply dismissing the potential juror would have been sufficient, imho.
Another case of the Emporer's clothes...or Judicial Tyranny.
Especially if you really mean it.
LOL, yeah sure.
The only time a judge feels any "consequences" is when he says something politically incorrect about women.
This "Judge" should be held in "Contempt of Common Sense" - he's an idiot!
Randolph N. Jonakait, a professor at New York Law School and the author of "The American Jury System," agreed.
The purpose of voir dire, a French term meaning "to speak the truth," is to find out whether potential jurors may be biased. He said he had never heard of a juror being held in contempt for using candid, although, crude language. "It's hard enough to get people to voice their opinions honestly in front of other jurors," he said. "When a judge intimidates prospective jurors from speaking their mind, I think it harms the jury system."
I agree...would seem to be a good way to get out of jury duty...but what the judge did will increase the likelihood of getting jurors who will not listen to evidence and go into trial with a bias.
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