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Originally Posted by JinnKai
pan, have you ever personally heard a judge voice his or her personal opinion after rendering an official judgment?
Do you have a problem with a judge doing that, if they don't ask anyone to leave first?
As a perfect example, I had a judge say the following to me:
"In light of your agreement with the district attorney, this court finds that you are guilty of XXXX, and sentences you to 24 hours of community service and a XXXX class. "
"And personally, I think you've gotten off very easy here. You could've been charged with far more serious things, and I think you owe the officers here an apology at the very least. I think you've got a lot of maturing to do, and I hope that you do it quickly because I don't want to see your face in here again."
The second half wasn't his "official" ruling, it was his personal opinion. It was embarrassing, and if he had said it to me in private, I would've preferred it.
I find no problem with what he did, and I would've think that anyone should be offended if he asked them to leave so he could deliver his "personal opinion" to me in private.
It is because of this personal memory that I find it hard to see this story in any other light.
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I have no problem with your scenario. I believe it can be very helpful, as you demonstrate. He does it in front of everyone, shows no prejudice (especially if he has a history of this) and perhaps the embarrassment of everyone else in court seeing it may have done more to challenge the behavior than if he would have done it one on one with you (which needless to say, I would have disagreed with.)
I don't think clearing out everyone is necessary or is within his scope to do so.
I do however, as I have said over and over, believe kicking everyone out except a certain group is unethical, should be illegal, prejudicial and racist (in this case), had it been a male/female it would have been sexist and so on.
What people here don't seem to understand is that in this part, of the argument, race/sex/ethnicity/etc doesn't matter to me. Wrong is wrong.
When it becomes ok for a judge to separate and kick people out except of one persuasion but other judges of other types, they argue cannot
Then it becomes another issue.
I think people are either not wanting to argue the dark underbelly argument.. because it is hypocritical or they are somehow wanting to combine the 2 issues.
Seeings how I have separated the issues over and over..... I don't see how they could combine the 2.