This courtroom footage shows a judge threatening a lawyer before the two leave to fight.
So how was this just allowed to happen?
And what were the consequences?
The incident occured on the 2nd June 2014 in Brevard County courtroom, Florida.
Of course it was Florida.
Judge John Murphy is presiding.
Also present is assistant public defender Andrew Weinstock.
The two seem to have a tense relationship for whatever reason and this devolves into
verbal sparring when Weinstock is representing clients.
This comes to a head when Weinstock's client, Mr Runkles steps forward.
He is charged with assault and resisting arrest.
In the United States, the Sixth Ammendment of the Constitution grants those charged with
a crime the right to a speedy trial, meaning you'll be given a trial within 90 days for
a misdemeanor or 175 days for a felony.
If you don't want a speedy trial, you can waive your right to one - and this allows
your attorneys more time to build a defence.
For this reason a lot of people will find it preferable to waive their right to speedy
trial.
A court may also find this preferable if they're badly congested during that time, although
they cannot use this as a reason to extend the speedy trial period.
Crowded schedule or no, they must honour the speedy trial period, outside of exceptional
circumstances.
In this case, Mr Runkles prefers to get his trial over with as quickly as possible, so
Weinstock refuses to waive his client's right to a speedy trial.
Then
this happens.
The two leave the courtroom and head out into the hallway.
Sadly, there is no camera monitoring this, so there is no footage of what's happening,
but there's obviously some sort of physical altercation outside.
The people still present are a mixture of amused and confused.
Some are laughing.
I have to commend their composure during this incident.
Two officers of the court just left to have a fight, they're literally witnessing a complete
breakdown of the law here.
In my opinion that's carte blanche to go fucking crazy, get up and start throwing those chairs
around, take your clothes off, start a fire.
The second that judge said he'd whoop the lawyer's ass, a full scale riot should have
erupted in this room.
I mean who'd blame you?
Authority has just given way to base violence - it's total societal collapse at that point,
go wild.
Mr Runkles is the biggest goof of all here, charged with assault and the judge goes to
beat the shit out of his defence, and all he does is stand there.
I wouldn't tolerate that.
How are you going to watch the judge beat up your lawyer and still accept that it's
you who's being charged with assault?
Fuck that, at the very least you might as well go out and defend the fella.
Who knows, maybe that was the judge's plan all along - he was just showing the guy the
error of his ways - like "this is what would happen if everyone went around committing
assault, and now you have no defence".
This theory is given creedence when deputies break up the fight and Judge Murphy comes
back to the courtroom but not Weinstock.
And would you believe it, court just continues as if nothing happened - yes that's right,
the judge continues prompting Mr Runkles even though his defence is no longer present.
I mean it's not a trial but can you imagine if every judge could do that?
Just beat up the lawyers when they're annoying you or getting in the way and just continue
without them.
Despite what he's just witnessed, Mr Runkles still opts for speedy trial.
Luckily for him, Judge Murphy doesn't whoop his ass for this.
Seven cases are called where the defendants were not represented by any attorney.
So what really happened outside?
Weinstock alleges he left the room with the understanding they would be taking their argument
out of the courtroom, however, upon leaving the room, Judge Murphy grabbed a hold of him
and starting punching him in the face.
Judge Murphy claimed that when they got outside it was actually Weinstock who was charging
at him, and that Weinstock struck him, not the other way around.
Now I'm not going to say he's a liar but in my professional opinion it seems likely that
the fella who threatened to go outside and whoop some ass, the fella who can be heard
screaming "you want to fuck with me?", the fella who returned by himself with no sign
of the other combatant - I'm gonna say that was probably the guy throwing the punches.
Just my professional opinion, but my profession is YouTube so maybe that's not worth much.
A disciplinary panel made Judge Murphy take a four-week paid leave of absence, undergo
anger management counseling and issue an apology, after which he returned to the bench.
The elected public defender, Weinstock's boss, welcomed Judge Murphy's return to the bench,
angering Weinstock who thought he shouldn't be allowed back at all.
In response, Weinstock quit his job.
He wasn't the only one unhappy, and the Florida Supreme Court sought Murphy's permanent suspension,
noting that the incident had become a national spectacle and was an embarrassment to Florida's
judicial system.
Good one.
Judge Murphy maintained he did not strike Weinstock, nor did he attempt to strike him,
and the incident was the regrettable product of a particularly stressful time for Murphy,
in which he was suffering from PTSD from his deployment in Afghanistan.
Jesus this story couldn't get any more American could it?
You don't get representation in court because the judge beat up your lawyer, and your judge
beat up your lawyer because he was suffering the effects of fighting in a twenty year war
the government was waging on the other side of the world.
Well, at least the war was a success, right?
Oh, deary me.
Judge John Murphy was permanently removed from the bench.
Meaning both men ended up losing a job from the incident.
But that's what you should probably expect getting into a fight in a courtroom, no matter
who wins, you're both going to lose.
It's pretty funny that such a thing happened but when you actually examine it it's kind
of sad, like it's symptomatic of a system that's fucked up on many levels and ultimately
fails the average person.
And this isn't just a filthy European throwing around his worthless opinions of America.
I'm not trying to be smarmy or condescending, for once.
The system often fails the people in every part of the world, this story just happens
to take place in America.
I know it wasn't you, the viewer, my friend, who made your system fucked up, just like
it wasn't me who made our system fucked up.
Well, most of it wasn't me.
If you're interested in a system that never fails its people, considering subscribing
to my channel, because I put out a new video every week, and that means I have a huge backlog
you can binge on too.
I've also added some more custom emojis to the channel membership, so buy a membership
if you wanna use these emotes in the comments - it's the only true way for Qxir fans to
communicate.
Otherwise I'd prefer if you'd just be quiet.
So until next time -- that was a joke by the way, I was kidding, until next time, stay
safe and I'll see ya.