CONTENTS

last updated: Monday, April 28, 2008

• Broward Judge Retires After Getting Caught Smoking Pot
• Thoughts to inhale: A review of Judge Korda's recent pot-smoking arrest
• Broward Judge Faces Ethics Charges

Thoughts to inhale: The joint's jumpin' - 
A review of Judge Korda's recent pot-smoking arrest

by FRED GRIMM  fgrimm@herald.com
reposted from  http://www.miamiherald.com/418/story/48958.html

Ohhhhhh, no. Wasn't he supposed to be our sober judge?

Wasn't he Broward's steadfast judge, unintoxicated by bong hits of celebrity? Didn't we all watch 
Lawrence Korda, relieved, as he negotiated the media maelstrom, knowing that CNN and Court TV and 
MSNBC and Fox inhaled his every word, without spinning off into, like, uh, you know, spontaneous 
tangents of free association.

He came late into the who-da-baby-daddy courthouse ruckus as the antithesis of judicial 
wackiness. Not even a smidgen, in his courtroom, of Anna Nicole Smith necrophilia. No talk about 
her striking personal attributes. No judicial teariness. Judge Korda's restraint saved South 
Florida from sliding deeper into the national assumption that we're all a bunch of stoners down 
here.

Judge Korda gave us three weeks of tenuous self-esteem. Then he went to the park.

Stanley Goldman Park is a linear stretch of green parallel with Interstate 95 in Hollywood. 
Trees. Grass. Canal. But too much noise to safely indulge in illicit activities. What with the 
din of the freeway traffic, the whooping children, the screeching birds, Judge Korda probably 
didn't hear the approaching cops until they were on him. Busted.

The police report reads like an exercise in nostalgia, retrieved from the 1960s archives when so 
many of Lawrence Korda's contemporaries were indulging in weedy pursuits: 

"While jogging through the park, officers Gianino, Scheel and I could smell a strong odor of marijuana coming from in the park in front of us. Upon following the odor, we came in contact with a white male, later identified as arrestee Lawrence Korda, who was sitting near a tree on the southwest side of the hockey rink. Korda was in possession of one cannabis cigarette and was actively smoking it when we made contact with him."

Random bad-luck arrests by police officers who just happened upon smoky scenes in public places 
was once epidemic among the young, particularly when the young were stoned stupid. That 
particular subset of society would be, like Judge Korda (or me for that matter), 59 or 
thereabouts today.

Most of us, circa 1947, pretend that the 1960s and 1970s never happened. Or that the raucous 
behavior involved other people. Certainly not the parents of our particular children, who've been 
led to assume mom and dad were allied with J. Edgar Hoover in the War on Drugs.

Maybe there was an assumption before Judge Korda's arrest that someone caught with, as the 
Hollywood police report indicates, ''less than .1 grams'' of marijuana didn't risk arrest in 21st 
Century America. Very wrong. Judge Korda will be among 700,000 to 800,000 busted on marijuana 
charges in 2007, judging from a dozen previous years of pot cases cataloged by the nonprofit 
Sentencing Project.

The punishment likely to befall to Judge Korda -- not much beyond a diversion out of misdemeanor 
court into counseling -- might sound like lenient treatment for a powerful person. But it's 
pretty standard stuff. Only one in 18 marijuana defendants ends up with a felony conviction. 
Despite all those draconian get-tough laws on the books, most possession cases fade away in 
misdemeanor court, amounting to a $4 billion-a-year pretense that someone really cares. The 
Sentencing Project study suggested the public had become ``receptive to a broader consideration 
of alternatives to incarceration.''

Maybe the lenient disposition of pot cases has less to do with public attitudes than aging 
judges, who harbor disconcerting memories of not-very-judicial behavior at a 1979 Rolling Stones 
concert.

A sense of hypocrisy -- or maybe it's a touch of nostalgia -- keeps them from jailing a 
pot-smoking kid. Or a pot-smoking fellow judge. Especially when he was supposed to be the sober 
one.

Feb 8, 2007

BROWARD COURTS
Broward Judge Faces Ethics Charges
A state commission that looks at judges has filed ethics charges against Broward Circuit Judge Cheryl Alemán.
BY NIKKI WALLER
nwaller@MiamiHerald.com

Broward Circuit Judge Cheryl Alemán COULD LOSE HER JOB 

Charges against Cheryl Aleman 

Calling her courtroom behavior ''arrogant'' and ''discourteous,'' the state commission that polices judges filed ethics charges Tuesday with the Florida Supreme Court against Broward Circuit Judge Cheryl Alemán.

Alemán, long known as a strict judge prone to clashing with attorneys, could lose her job over the alleged ethics violations, among them ``a pattern of arrogant, discourteous and impatient conduct.''

Alemán, who last month was transferred out of the criminal division and is now hearing civil cases, did not return calls for comment.

In a formal notice of charges, attorneys for the Judicial Qualification Commission lambasted Alemán, writing that she has conducted herself ``in a manner that erodes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.''

NOT ONLY ONE

Aleman is the latest judge to come under fire in Broward. Over the past two years, complaints have been filed -- or rumored to have been filed -- against at least three other judges, including Circuit Judge Eileen O'Connor, accused of lying on her application for appointment to the circuit court. Last fall, a panel cleared O'Connor of misconduct.

Judiciary watchers say the JQC's charges against Alemán, along with public and rumored complaints against other Broward judges, are sending a message that judges cannot assume they'll be on the bench for life.

''There's so much frustration here, and anger and resentment, it's resulting in complaints to Tallahassee,'' said attorney Bill Gelin, one of several lawyers behind JAABlog, a web site focused on Broward courts that often criticizes the local judiciary.

The Florida Supreme Court rarely removes judges from the bench. Other forms of discipline, such as fines, reprimands and suspensions, are more common remedies.

Last year, after criticism from minority groups over judges' treatment of blacks and Hispanics, the county's chief judge recommended that all Broward judges attend sensitivity training.

ALLEGATIONS DETAILED

The notice of charges filed Tuesday details several instances in which Alemán allegedly behaved with bias or violated judicial rules of conduct.

Among the accusations leveled against the judge:

  *  That she showed bias against public defenders during the 2006 murder trial of a Hollywood man, giving unreasonable time to file motions and threatening to jail them on contempt charges when they tried to have her removed from the case.
  *  That she wrongly jailed an attorney last year for missing hearings in her court. Alemán allegedly ordered him to appear in court, threatening him with jail, even though she knew he was out of town and unable to appear.
  *  That she violated judicial ethics in July 2003 when she refused to release a jailed inmate who was dying of AIDS, despite recommendations of prosecutors and defense lawyers.

Sandra Perlman and Bruce Raticoff, veteran public defenders who battled Alemán during the 2006 murder trial, greeted the news of the charges with relief.

''She cannot act with impunity, she has to take responsibility for her actions,'' said Perlman, who believes she was unfairly targeted by the judge because she campaigned for a judicial candidate who ran against Alemán.

Perlman's client, Lawrence Braynen, suffered because his attorneys had to defend themselves while they were defending him, she said.

Braynen, who could face the death penalty if he is convicted in the fatal 2001 beating of a child, often felt forgotten amid the courtroom acrimony, Perlman said.

Alemán's transfer forced the case to go to another judge and is scheduled for trial next month.

''It's very reassuring to know the JQC is doing their job,'' Raticoff said. ``This set of events was in my 26 years the most egregious judicial misconduct I've ever been witness to.''

Alemán has 20 days to file a written response to the charges. She can choose to agree to some form of discipline, which can range from a public reprimand before the state Supreme Court, a fine or suspension.

If Alemán chooses to challenge the charges, she or her attorney must argue the case before a JQC hearing panel.

In either case, the full panel of the state's highest court decides on a fitting punishment. If she challenges the charges and loses, the Supreme Court could decide to kick her off the bench.

Appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2001, Alemán first generated controversy after discussing her religious views at her swearing-in.

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