[Catspaw]

The Judge, if he's allowed to stay on this case, is in deep doo doo. Not only did the defendant ask for a lawyer and was refused an attorney by the judge, but he didn't do a simple review of the defendant to see if he made a knowing and intelligent waiver of an attorney. That's mistake number one.

Mistake number two was proceeding with the on-the-record hearing with the defendant claiming he didn't understand the proceeding and continuing to request an attorney and the judge barrelling along to assess the restitution despite the defendant's protests. You can bet the public defender's office, once it gets off its butt, is going to appeal this, and the judge is going to be hauled before the Judicial Review Committee. Heck, the kid may not even have to pay the restitution because the judge screwed up so badly.

Mistake number three was not recognizing the reporter.

You might be able to excuse the fundamental lack of knowledge about the law and case law, but you cannot excuse the absolute stupidity of the judge in not recognizing a reporter on the courthouse beat busily scribbling notes.

[az wildkitten]

thank you for clearly identifying the problems with how this judge handled this case.

[Ben Chad]

You might be able to excuse the fundamental lack of knowledge about the law and case law, but you cannot excuse the absolute stupidity of the judge in not recognizing a reporter on the courthouse beat busily scribbling notes.

Bump

[Psycho_Bunny]

Seems to me like a lot of non-members of the Florida Bar are commenting on this.

What do you actually know about this proceeding? In Florida, a restitution hearing may be an equivalent to a sentencing "hearing" in other states, where the "hearing" is nothing other than the judge sentencing the guilty party.

This case was already decided....WITH an attorney.

Furthermore this was a juvenile case sentencing.

I’ll stay my opinion of the judge because I don’t know Florida law.