25720: Hermantin(news)Judge's comments racist, Haitian lawyers contend (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Fri, Jul. 15, 2005

Miami Herald


BROWARD COURTS


Judge's comments racist, Haitian lawyers contend

The Haitian Lawyers Association has joined others in complaining about comments 
Broward County Judge Leonard Feiner made last month about the courthouse 
custodial staff.

BY BRIDGET CAREY

bcarey@herald.com


The Haitian Lawyers Association is demanding an apology from a county judge for 
what it calls ''insensitive and openly racist'' comments the judge made last 
month about the courthouse custodial staff.

Lisa Metellus-Hood, the association's president, sent a letter Thursday to the 
Judicial Qualifications Commission, supporting formal complaints against Judge 
Leonard Feiner that were filed by the Broward County Public Defender's Office.

Two weeks ago, the Fort Lauderdale branch of the NAACP also filed a complaint 
with the JQC about what Feiner said in court.

While court was in session in June, Feiner complained that his desk was left in 
disarray. His telephone had been moved. His microphone was out of place. 
Someone had messed with his University of Florida memorabilia. Paper clips were 
strewn about.

He halted the proceedings and called for someone to summon the courthouse 
custodial supervisor, Nadine Coke, to the bench.

''They may live in -- in hovels where they -- where they live, but they don't 
have to leave places they work looking like a dump,'' he said to Coke.

Coke asked for Feiner to repeat himself, and Feiner responded, ``I said people 
that -- that they hire may live in hovels, but they don't have to leave 
courtrooms and the places they work looking like a slum.''

Feiner's lawyer Ed McGhee said Feiner was not targeting any race and was simply 
upset that his desk was in a mess when the rest of the courtroom was in perfect 
order.

The Haitian Lawyers Association supported an earlier formal complaint from the 
Broward Public Defender's Office, which criticized Feiner over the comments.

Metellus-Hood said Feiner's comments were racist because many members of the 
night custodial staff are Haitian Americans.

But McGhee said groups like the lawyers association are the racist ones for 
assuming he was speaking of Haitians when he was complaining.

''It's pretty disappointing,'' Metellus-Hood said, referring to having a public 
figure speak that way in court. She said she wants Feiner to apologize to the 
Haitian community, and wants him to be publicly reprimanded. She also wants him 
to attend sensitivity training.

Metellus-Hood said association members also didn't like the way Feiner called 
Coke to the bench. ''It was not tactfully done,'' Metellus-Hood said. ``I'm 
sure it was embarrassing to the supervisor.''

Jayme Cassidy, the county's chief assistant public defender, said calling Coke 
to his bench to publicly embarrass her while court was in session was an abuse 
of his judicial power.

''He had no authority over her,'' Cassidy said of Coke.

McGhee disagrees.

''They're grasping at straws to make it sensational,'' McGhee said. ``How else 
would you report something to housekeeping? How else could you get them to see 
what was done?''

No matter what the JQC decides, Cassidy said, she hopes it is a wake-up call 
for judges that ``they're not going to get away with inappropriate activity 
like they have in the past.''