Judge Leo Bowman (pic) apparently frustrated at prospective jurors who show up late or with children in tow has taken to punishing these citizens by making them sit through the trial anyway. In one case, Carmela Khury, a prospective juror who could not find a baby sitter showed up with two young children and ordered to sit through a murder trial and Judge Bowman told her she was going to go to jail.
The Michigan Supreme Court intervened telling Judge Bowman that he has no authority to exercise this summary authority.
This is the sort of thing you see all the time with certain judges in various venues, petty tyrants who use their limited powers to prove a point at the cost of individual liberty. While you can understand any given judge's frustration over delays or the inadequacy of a jury venire, how is it these be-robed men and women find themselves exercising powers they don't possess? Seriously, something occasionally happens to good and honest people who armed with a law license slip a robe on. The brain swells, the lawyer begins to view themselves as possessing God-like powers of wisdom and grace, unfortunately these human beings are just crazy and deluded. But boy can they do a lot of damage to the respect for the law.
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wow.
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