Judge Who Jailed ‘Asshole’ Critic Will Step Down
A New York family court judge who sent a woman to a holding cell for calling her an “asshole” has agreed that she won’t seek reappointment.
Judge Marian Shelton admitted to violating a rule requiring judges to be “patient, dignified and courteous,” the New York Law Journal reports. She will not be sanctioned.
The agreement stems from an incident involving the wife of Shelton’s intake clerk. The woman had entered the courtroom as her husband was finishing up work one evening and motioned to him. When Shelton ordered the woman to leave, she called Shelton an “asshole,” according to the stipulation by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
Shelton ordered the woman placed in a holding cell for the weekend but relented after the woman spent a few minutes locked up and agreed to apologize.
Under Shelton’s agreement with the commission, 12 other charges will be withdrawn as long as she stays off the bench when her judgeship ends Dec. 31. Other charges included allegations she mocked a legal aid attorney’s accent and criticized a litigant’s hairstyle.
Previously Shelton had vigorously contested all the charges, claiming the conduct commission was doing the bidding of the president of the New York Court Officers Association. She had called the commission’s selection of a referee to preside in her case “the kangaroo’s latest hop.”
