Video shows defendant shocked in court, at demand of judge, because he kept talking
A video shown in federal court last week of a senior Maryland judge ordering a court security officer to shock a pro se defendant with a 50,000-volt device has now been publicly released.
It shows Charles County Circuit Judge Robert Nalley quickly growing impatient with defendant Saamir Jhaled Khaleel Kingali as he read from a prepared statement. When the defendant, who is also known as Delvon King, didn’t immediately stop when twice told to do so, Nalley ordered him shocked and King falls to the floor in a fetal position screaming, according to footage provided in an ABC News report.
“It felt like fire went through my back,” he said outside court after Nalley was sentenced to probation, a $5,000 fine and anger management classes. King, who was defending himself in 2014 in a gun case resulting from a traffic stop, also got probation at that time.
Kristi O’Malley, who prosecuted the case against Nalley, said last week that the defendant never raised his voice before he was shocked in court and noted that he had called the judge “sir.” She said the use of the Stun-Cuff in 2014 was “highly disproportionate” to the verbal interruptions at issue.
Nalley didn’t apologize in court last week but said afterward that he had made an error in judgment, adding: “I regret that it ended this way.”
He pleaded guilty in February to deprivation of rights under color of law, a misdemeanor.
Nalley had retired in 2013 but was still hearing cases on a part-time basis at the time of King’s trial in 2014. He has since been banned from the Maryland bench by the state’s highest court, according to ABC News and an earlier Washington Post (reg. req.) story.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Ex-judge will have to pay fine for ordering shocking of talkative defendant”
