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September 2, 2010 |
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| October 26, 2007 |
By: Jordana Mishory |
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ar leaders and the public defender issued new calls Thursday for sensitivity training for Broward judges after Circuit Judge Jeffrey Levenson made an off-color joke in his courtroom about a teenage boy who allegedly had sex with an adult male defendant.
“If this incident doesn’t scream loudly how desperately we need diversity and sensitivity training in this circuit, then I don’t know what will,” said Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein. “In a matter of a year or two years, we had a judge insult Haitian-Americans, another insult African-Americans, had a third judge insulting blacks, Hispanics and Catholics, and a fourth judge insulting gay people.”
Finkelstein said he is moving to ensure the members of his office understand the need for sensitivity after learning one of his assistant public defenders participated in the exchange in Levenson’s courtroom. Finkelstein has scheduled a sensitivity training session for his lawyers in Fort Lauderdale today. He also docked the assistant, Brian Reidy, a week’s vacation.
The latest faux pas came when Judge Levenson asked a prosecutor and the defense lawyer what position the 16-year-old boy played on his high school football team. Reidy joked the boy was a “tight end,” when in fact, he played a linebacker position. Levenson then quipped the boy was a “wide receiver.”
Kathy Achille, vice president of the Haitian Lawyers Association, said the incident answers the question of whether the circuit needs continued sensitivity training “with an exclamation point.”
But Broward Chief Judge Victor Tobin said the call for sensitivity training shouldn’t start and end with the members on the bench.
“They are constantly singling out the judicial branch of government,” Tobin said. “Why don’t they say this is a member of the Bar and we should do it for ourselves?”
Tobin said he immediately conducted an administrative judge’s meeting Levenson attended. He said the judges talked about behaving with professionalism and courtesy. He said Levenson “remains contrite and apologetic and realizes the statement was in error.”
“I am looking at the issue, I took the [chief judge] job on Sept. 4, and with the intervening legal holidays, it’s going to take more than 30 seconds for me to put together an appropriate program for judges,” Tobin said. “Every time someone says something doesn’t mean I send 90 people to training.”
When told that Tobin questioned why the bar leaders aren’t pushing for the Bar to conduct training, Achille said the ongoing embarrassing incidents have come from the bench, not from the Bar. “This is the first incident involving a lawyer, but the judges’ actions are what put the circuit on the map,” Achille said.
Tobin told the Daily Business Review in August that for the time being, Broward judges will not undergo any more training. The circuit is in compliance with a September 2006 Florida Supreme Court administrative order requiring at least one sensitivity training session should be held in every trial and appellate court by the end of this year, according to the Supreme Court committee.
“If we’re in compliance, we’re in compliance,” Tobin said at the time. Tobin said Thursday he may reconsider.
Finkelstein said Tobin’s prior stance of not instituting more sensitivity training because the court was in compliance is wrong.
“It is not possible to become too sensitive and too tuned in to the minority communities,” Finkelstein said.
Fort Lauderdale attorney and former state Sen. Walter “Skip” Campbell said this incident isn’t a reason for more sensitivity training. He said it was a bad joke delivered at an inappropriate time.
“An eight-hour course on sensitivity training is not going to train a person,” Campbell said. “Sensitivity training comes from within.”
He said what the judges need to learn is to think before they speak. He said he has faith that Tobin’s method of handling it with the judges is working.
Ad hoc group forms
Over the summer, Campbell summoned some of the county’s legal elite to form an ad hoc group with the goal of improving the public perception of the Broward judiciary following a string of incidents. Since Tobin took over as chief judge, circuit judges haven’t made the news for inappropriate comments and the group hasn’t met in several weeks.
“Whenever we meet again, we’ll talk about, ‘how do you convince someone to think before you speak?’” Campbell said. “I think it shouldn’t be done on the front-page of a newspaper, but rather in the back office.”
But the incident, which occurred last week in Levenson’s courtroom, quickly made the newspapers when it was first picked up by a blog called JAABlog and then published by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
According to a court transcript posted on the blog, the judge started the conversation about what position the teenager played on his football team.
Assistant State Attorney Adriana Alcalde replied, “Linebacker.”
Reidy, the assistant public defender said, “Tight end.”
Levenson then asked, “Wide receiver?”
Alcalde responded, “Judge, you know, I don’t think that joke is even remotely funny.”
Judge Levenson immediately apologized several times in the next few minutes. “You know what, I take it back, it was politically incorrect, and I really apologize for that.” A few moments later he added, “Actually, you know what, that was really inappropriate what I said. … And I’m really sorry I said that.”
In an interview after the incident, Levenson said his statement was “inappropriate and sophomoric” and was said without thinking. He said he let down the public, the Bar and his fellow judges. Levenson acknowledged judges should be held to a higher standard than lawyers because of their responsibility and power.
As to whether it merits more sensitivity training is not up to him to decide, he said. But he said training is always helpful.
“I think that sensitivity training helped me recognize the error of my ways immediately and take corrective actions,” Levenson said in an interview.
He added Tobin’s response of calling him into an administrative meeting to talk about the incident was both constructive and appropriate.
Bar leaders said they were heartened by Levenson’s immediate apology. Finkelstein said Levenson is “a good man” and he appreciated the immediate apology.
Reidy plans to speak at the sexual orientation-specific sensitivity session called by Finkelstein. The public defender said the session will be followed by smaller group discussions.
Finkelstein said sensitivity training is important to “remind judges that the courtroom is not an extension of their personality. The courtroom belongs to all people and all of the people should feel comfortable and at home in the courtroom, whether they are black, white, straight or gay.”
Pattern of insensitivity
The joke came after a litany of problems in the Broward judiciary. For the past few years, Broward judges have faced a series of allegations of misconduct and insensitive comments and behavior. In 2005, County Judge Leonard Feiner commented that the court’s mostly Haitian-American cleaning staff lives in “hovels.” That same year, former Broward Circuit Judge Lawrence Korda, who resigned from the bench this summer after being caught smoking pot in a public park, chastised a Spanish-speaking battered woman seeking a restraining order against her husband for not speaking English.
Following those incidents, Chief Judge Dale Ross implemented sensitivity training upon the suggestion and urging of the minority bar leaders.
But that didn’t stop the problems. In February, Ross made quips during a weekend bond hearing that critics said reflected racial and ethnic stereotypes. Circuit Judge Charles Greene made a racially charged comment from the bench — calling a case with black defendants, victims and witnesses an “NHI” case, meaning “no humans involved.”
Judge Tobin, who took over as chief judge in September, effectively scuttled the four-judge diversity board established by Ross in March. Rather than have the group field complaints, he wants the board to look into future sensitivity training options and serve as a liaison with the state Supreme Court’s board looking into diversity programs.
“Their function is to promote education in the area of cultural diversity and have them get us voluntarily education that we can afford,” Tobin said.
Tobin said he has met with the Broward County Bar Association to discuss potential training prior to this incident happening. Tobin noted in an interview Thursday that it was an attorney who made the first quip.
Achille said incidents like this “chip away” at the public’s faith and confidence in the justice system, the court and the legal profession.
She said that she and her fellow minority bar leaders have been advocating for increased sensitivity training all along — not just whenever a judge sticks his foot in his mouth.
“If the people you’re trying to say this to believe that [sensitivity training] is no longer needed, or if they believe we’re not going to act until the Florida Supreme Court tells us, what more can you do,” Achille said. “We say this stuff so much I start to feel like a broken record.”
“You can only lead a person to the water. You can’t make that person drink,” she
added.
Jordana Mishory can be reached at jmishory@alm.com or at (954) 468-2616.
Victor Tobin photo by Melanie Bell
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