Court removes Brevard County Judge Murphy
Court removes Brevard County Judge Murphy
Calling the judge’s “total lack of self-control” a “national spectacle and an embarrassment to Florida’s judicial system,” the Florida Supreme Court rejected the JQC’s recommendation and instead removed Brevard County Judge John C. Murphy from the bench.
Judge Murphy’s frustration with an assistant public defender in open court on June 2, 2014, led to cussing at him and leaving the bench to meet the lawyer in the hallway for a scuffle. The judge returned to the bench and resumed going down the docket with stunned defendants who no longer had counsel.
The Judicial Qualifications Commission had called for a public reprimand, suspension without pay for 120 days, a $50,000 fine plus costs, and continued participation in a mental health therapy program.
But the justices were united in calling for Murphy to step down as a judge.
“Judge Murphy used profanity in an open courtroom and threatened violence against an attorney appearing before him. This is the sort of egregious conduct that erodes the public’s confidence,” the justices agreed in Case No. SC14-1582 on December 17 (with Justice Perry recused).
“It is without question that except for the June 2, 2014, incident, Judge Murphy had been a good judge. Notwithstanding his prior judicial performance, Judge Murphy’s total lack of self-control became a national spectacle — an embarrassment not only to the judge himself but also to Florida’s judicial system. Given the clear erosion of public confidence in the judiciary caused by his misconduct, removal is an appropriate sanction.”
In his answer to the notice of formal charges, Judge Murphy said that he became frustrated with Assistant Public Defender Andrew Weinstock because he “repeatedly refused to make any announcement to the court regarding the wishes of several clients — whether to proceed to trial, to enter a plea, or to waive the right to speedy trial.”
A courtroom video from the incident showed that after Weinstock refused to waive speedy trial for his client, Judge Murphy said: “You know, if I had a rock I would throw it at you right now. Stop pissing me off. Just sit down.”
When Weinstock refused to sit down and asserted his right to stand and represent his clients, Judge Murphy shouted: “I said, ‘sit down!’ If you want to fight, let’s go out back and I’ll just beat your ass.”
The two men left the courtroom and met in the hallway. No video shows what transpired in the hallway, but the courtroom audio captured Judge Murphy saying: “Alright you, you want to f— with me?” followed by sounds of a scuffle.
Weinstein later requested that the judge be arrested for hitting him twice in the face, but no arrest was made. A woman seated in the back of the courtroom said when the judge and lawyer entered the hallway, she saw Murphy grab Weinstock’s collar with his left hand and raise his right arm, as if he were going to throw a punch. The door closed before she could see any punches land, but she heard “a bunch of punch, punch.”
Weinstock described his relationship with Judge Murphy as “adversarial, high stress, and very mercurial” with testy exchanges from time to time. In previous instances, he said that Judge Murphy had told him, “Let’s go out in the back hallway and discuss it.” The judge would yell, and they would continue with court business. On this day, Weinstock said, Murphy was “clearly angry,” but he did not think the judge would follow through on his threat to “beat his ass.”
Weinstock said that when he went in the hallway expecting to have a discussion, Judge Murphy pinned him against the wall with his left arm and punched him twice with his right arm. Before the judge could hit him a third time, Weinstock said, two deputies pulled Murphy off of him.
In his defense, Judge Murphy said Weinstock was rude to his clients and disrespectful to the judge, and Weinstock was the aggressor who first hit him in the chest. The judge said he “only took defensive actions.”
Deputy Cheryl Martinez, assigned to an adjacent courtroom, ran out when she heard shouting and a bang. She recalled seeing Judge Murphy and Weinstock screaming at each other with “two hands each on the other’s collar.”
But Deputy Griffin, the first to break up the scuffle, said neither man actually hit each other, and when he put his hands between the men to separate them, they all shifted and hit the wall, causing a thumping sound.
There is no conflict in what happened next:
Judge Murphy returned to the courtroom and called eight cases of defendants who stood alone. In one case, when Judge Murphy asked the defendant what he wanted to do with his DUI case, the defendant said he had “no idea what to do in this situation. I haven’t had a chance to speak to my public defender. And now, I don’t have a public defender.” Judge Murphy told the defendant that he might have a chance to talk to a public defender if he waived speedy trial, so the defendant did so.
Judge Murphy said Weinstock’s clients were also his clients and he wanted to make sure everyone received fair representation.
“When asked how they could be his clients, Judge Murphy said, ‘This is county court. It’s people’s court.. . . They’re my people.’”
He admitted that resuming with the defendants’ cases as though they were pro se litigants “was clearly wrong” and he should have waited for a new public defender to arrive to replace Weinstock.
Following the incident, Judge Murphy met weekly or biweekly with a psychologist for anger management.
“Dr. Ronsisvalle described a ‘perfect storm’ occurring within Judge Murphy emotionally during the incident: Judge Murphy was fatigued, his father had recently passed, and a defendant had recently been killed outside the courthouse,” according to the court.
The psychologist’s opinion was that Judge Murphy could safely return to work and was not at risk to repeat this behavior, because he was in more control of his anger.
Judge Murphy apologized to Weinstock and wrote apology letters to members of the legal community and citizens of Brevard County. In response to the Supreme Court’s order to show cause why he should not be removed from office, Judge Murphy’s response included a Department of Veterans Affairs finding of 30 percent disability based on post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from combat deployment to Afghanistan.
“The severity of Judge Murphy’s behavior and VA finding leave open the possibility of future misconduct,” the justices agreed.
“Based on the clear erosion of public faith in our court system caused by Judge Murphy’s misconduct and the unmistakable possibility that he could have a similar outburst in the future, we must find that Judge Murphy is presently unfit to serve.”
