Impaired judge ordered home from court could not remember her address, investigative report says
An investigation of a Florida judge ordered to go home from court by the circuit’s chief judge one day last month has led to a suspension recommendation.
In a Monday filing (PDF) with the Florida Supreme Court, an investigative panel of the state Judicial Qualifications Commission reported on two incidents concerning Miami-Dade County Judge Jacqueline Schwartz.
On March 18, Schwartz self-reported a few days later, there had been an incident at a Coconut Grove restaurant. She said she “had nothing at all to drink and had not taken any substances of any sort,” but her account was “inconsistent” with what witnesses reported, the panel wrote.
The judge, the filing says, was clearly impaired, spilling wine on herself and water on the floor, and was verbally abusive to restaurant staff and emergency responders who were eventually called to the scene. Among other comments, she told a waiter “you don’t know who I am” and called him a “fucking idiot,” the panel said.
On March 28, the judge was impaired while presiding in court over a criminal traffic docket, reported by numerous witnesses to be “unsteady on her feet, slurring her words and unable to concentrate,” the filing says. Told to go home by the chief judge, she said she could drive, but court officers insisted on driving her.
However, “on the way to her home, the judge was unable to provide accurate directions to her home, and couldn’t remember her address, whose car she was in, or who her bailiff was,” the filing says. “After contacting a third party who was able to relay the judge’s actual address, she was taken home.”
Her lawyer, Jeffrey Feiler, told the commission earlier this month that the judge had been having issues with a new prescription medication, the Miami Herald (sub. req.) reports.
Schwartz has been on paid medical leave since March 28, and the commission recommends that she be suspended with pay until the judicial ethics matter is resolved.
In notice of formal charges (PDF), she is charged by the commission with “inappropriate conduct” violating multiple judicial ethics canons.
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “Judge reprimanded for using ‘one of the worst profanities known to the English language,’ fined $10K”
