Offended by victim-impact statement, judge comments on Facebook; is it an ethics violation?
A judge in Louisville, Kentucky, says he was cautioning parents about racial stereotypes when he criticized a victim-impact statement on Facebook.
Judge Olu Stevens didn’t identify the crime victims by name when he wrote about the statement, which claimed that a home invasion and robbery had left a young girl with a fear of black men, the Courier-Journal reports in a story reprinted by USA Today. The girl was 3 years old at the time of the crime, committed by two African-American men, in March 2013.
“Do 3-year-olds form such generalized, stereotyped and racist opinions of others?” Stevens wrote on Facebook. “I think not. Perhaps the mother had attributed her own views to her child as a manner of sanitizing them.”
The victims and their friends responded with their own Facebook page urging Stevens’ ouster, according to the story.
Stevens initially mentioned the victim-impact statement, written by the girl’s mother, during a Feb. 4 sentencing hearing. “I am deeply offended,” Stevens said. “This little girl certainly has been victimized, and she can’t help the way she feels. … My exception is more with her parents and their accepting that kind of mentality and fostering those type of stereotypes.”
Stevens said his reaction to the statement did not affect his sentencing of Gregory Wallace, 27, who had no prior convictions for violent crimes and had strong family support. Wallace received probation while the other offender, Marquis McAfee, 27, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Some ethics experts who spoke with the Courier-Journal criticized the Facebook post. Chapman University law professor Ronald Rotunda said a judge should not comment on a pending case and should not use the prestige of his office to further his own interests. And DePaul University law professor Jeffrey Shaman said he feared the criticism could discourage other victims from participating in the criminal justice system.
Indiana University law professor Charles Gey said Stevens arguably should have disqualified himself from the case given his emotional reaction in court. But he cautioned that racial issues can be complex.
“An observer disconnected from issues of race and racial politics might regard the victim statement as innocuous,” he said. “For an observer sensitive to race; however, the implication that black defendants should be held accountable for traumatizing their victims because they are black … is troubling.”
