Posted on 03/29/2008 12:54:02 PM PDT by kingattax
ATLANTA -- Judge Marvin Arrington insists he's not a racist; despite ordering white lawyers out of his courtroom on Thursday.
The Fulton County Superior Court judge said he was just fed up seeing a parade of young black defendants in his courtroom.
"I came out and saw the defendants, about 99.9 percent Afro-Americans, and some point time I excused some of the lawyers, most of them white, and said to the young people in here 'What in the world are you doing with your lives,'" he told WSB-TV Channel 2 reporter JaQuitta Williams.
Arrington said he thought his message might have more power if it was delivered to a blacks-only audience.
"I didn't think about racism or reverse racism, I practiced law for 30 years and 75 percent of my partners were white," he explained.
The judge said the majority of people who appear before him accused of crimes such as murder, rape and robbery are black and he wanted to do something about it, one on one.
"I didn't want them to think I was talking down to them; trying to embarrass them or insult them; be derogatory towards them and I was just saying 'Please get yourself together,'" he said.
Arrington added that he may make a similar speech next week, but this time he'll allow everyone to hear it.
Lady Justice is often depicted wearing a blindfold. This is done in order to indicate that justice is (or should be) meted out objectively, without fear or favor, regardless of the identity, power, or weakness: blind justice and blind equality.
I suspect that the judge has his heart in the right place, but not his head.
If he is driven to help Black folks, fine, but not from the bench. He could probably help Black crooks in many ways, but he may get himself in to trouble using this approach.
Secondly, if this was a white judge with 99.5% whites coming in and he asked all black people to leave, he would have been investigated for hate crimes!
Do your damn job judge instead of trying to audition as a summer replacement to Judge Mathis!
Yeah, I don't see this as a bad thing either.
Perhaps he needed to handle it a little differently but I can definitely see where he’s coming from. He went Cosby on them. Good for the judge! Yeah, maybe asking the whites to leave instead of defendants only without lawyers was a poor choice but imagine being in his position, watching the flotsam of society appear before his bench day-in, day-out, and realize it was mostly his race being bad. The judge wasn’t coming down on “whitey,” a la Reverend Wrong. Cut him some slack, everybody, and give him a vacation.
The guy recognized a problem, made a spur of the moment decision and tried to connect with the young men before him.
I can’t fault that. Every black leader should care this much about their youth, and we should care enough to understand and support them.
The act of having non-blacks removed recognizes a very real problem in black america today. Racism is rampant in it, and the judge admitted as much by his actions.
That doesn’t make him a racist, just a realist. Good luck to him. Lets just hope some young men listened.
I support what he did too, because this was not part of the legal proceedings, but more of a fatherly lecture, and sometimes you gotta do unusual things to change lives. It’s too bad someone didn’t have this talk with them before they appeared in orange suits. I hope the judge did some good. I hope he told them that this is the only time I’m going out of my way to get through to you, because I care that you don’t make this a habit. Now go and get yourselves right. If not for yourselves, do it for your Mothers. If I ever, ever see you gentlemen here before me again, you can talk to the hand.
JaLoser's half-cousin, once removed.
I semi-agree. The judge tried to do some good, but he probably picked the wrong venue (the Blind Court of Law) to do it. As a Black man, I can completely understand how he feels.
Reminds me of all the talk of “black on black” (and “white on black” crime - basically non-existant except for fake cases) crime from blacks, but hear nar a peep about concern for “black on white” crime.
I give him a pass. It needed to be done.
Perhaps, next time, he’ll invite Bill Cosby, as well.:)
Da judge should of said to the whitey lawyers: “Get da rope!”
who will start a protest march against the racist actions that were done to the White people who were prejudiced against? Where is OUR white leader who will stand for us? We may not need one in 2008 but in 40 years...you’ll change your mind when Whites make up a estimated 40-50% of the population in this country.
Speaking to represented defendants ex parte is a major ethical lapse for judges in many jurisdictions.
What legal process requires the removal of a defendant's attorney to be carried out?
Does one presume that the Court reporter is still present? Does one assume that the judge is providing counsel to the defendants?
Under what circumstances would any Freeper who found himself a defendant, agree to have his attorney barred from the courtroom?
i hope that he goes and speaks to “youth” before they get in front of him for rape, murder, and other violent crimes
I have no problem with what he did. He wanted to talk to them, black man to black man. I hope he had some sort of impact on them because of that.
I don’t think he was doing this in lieu of incarceration. I think he did it in ADDITION to putting their butts in jail, if they were, in fact, convicted of their crimes. He just wanted to have a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting with them before that happened.
Ah, what beneficence! What gracious condescension!
It's not clear that any "real" business was being conducted when the attorneys were absent, which would have been actionable. It's hard to tell but it looks like a set of routine arraignments and bond hearings and such that the judge interruptedand not a trial proceeding with 100s of defendants.
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