Judge Joe Brown In The Pokey?

He must have been having a bad day, or maybe the pressure of being a has-been TV court judge finally got to him...

Judge Joe Brown went nuts according to TMZ after he appeared in juvenile court for a case that the clerk couldn’t find. On a personal note, it is a little frustrating when you are in court on a case that is on the calendar, that your notes say is on the calendar, your client is there, and the clerk says, “We can’t find the file.” You have to wait around for a break whereupon the clerk looks for the file and hopefully finds it.

That said, I’ve never lost my marbles over something like this. He must have been having a bad day, or maybe the pressure of being a has-been TV court judge finally got to him…

So here are the details. Apparently after he went nuts, he continued to go nuts in front of the judge (audio below). The judge holds him in contempt of court five separate times, and sentences him to five days in jail.  You can hear Judge Brown in the audio saying he had looked up the contempt statute ahead of time and all he could receive is a $10 fine. Lovely.

I assume he was looking up the contempt statute because his client was in trouble for not paying child support (why Brown was there), and not because he anticipated going bananas in court. In any event, Brown told the judge he’d be getting out ASAP on a writ of habeas corpus. He was later released on his own recognizance.

I would have had more satisfaction if this story were about Judge Judy. She is so obnoxious. I hate seeing people go to jail, but she could use a few days in the pokey to simmer down.

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Earlier: Want To See Judge Joe Brown Drunk? Well, Here You Go….


Jenny M. Brandt is a criminal defense and appellate attorney in the Bay Area, California. She loves all things criminal law, celebrity gossip, and corgis, and has a blog at www.juicejusticeandcorgis.com. She graduated from UCLA (’05) and UCLA School of Law (’09) with a concentration in Critical Race Studies.

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