Fortunately for lawyers, the boredom of our professional lives is broken up by the myriad odd, and often amusing, “did that just happen” moments in the legal system. Sometimes, they allow us to revel in the cringeworthy mistakes of others, such as the August hearing when attorney Jose Baez (best known for defending Casey Anthony) referred to his murder defendant client (and former New England Patriot) Aaron Hernandez as “Aaron Rodriguez.” Guess he’s more of a baseball fan than a football fan. Then there are the two bumbling, would-be robbers of a Perth, Australia, pharmacy. The pair couldn’t do anything right during the July holdup attempt; one accidentally squirted himself in the face with pepper spray, while the other cut himself with the very knife he was using to threaten pharmacy employees. Blinded and bleeding, the inept pair grabbed the only items within reach, which turned out to be sleep apnea masks. The surveillance camera footage could very well be the next “Dumb and Dumber” movie.
Maybe they’ll have the luck to be brought before a judge who’s not actually a judge. That happened recently in suburban Chicago when a veteran Cook County Circuit Court judge allowed a lawyer who is running for judicial election to wear her robes and hear some of her cases. Judge Valerie Turner, who’s been a municipal court judge in Markham, Illinois, since 2002, allegedly let lawyer Rhonda Crawford take her place during her morning docket and “preside” over at least two cases. Turner has been removed from the bench while the state’s Judicial Inquiry Board investigates the “take my bench for a test drive” incident, and Crawford (who is currently a law clerk/staff attorney for another judge) has been suspended from her job pending an internal investigation.
