Judge Bedford: No radiator in my courtroom
November 3, 2008 at 4:26 pm by Scott Henry in NewsOK, last Friday I ran a blog post that accused Keisha Lance Bottoms of distributing false and misleading information in her campaign to unseat Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford, whom we affectionately call T-Jack.
However, Bedford is quite miffed at my reference to him “chaining Fulton DA Paul Howard to a radiator.” I just received a missive in which he calls my description of the 2006 incident “the most absurd and egregious of any I have heard from any source.”
Bedford goes on to state that his courtroom does not even contain a radiator and invites me to check for myself.
I believe him. Fact is, I intended the radiator remark as edgy humor. There’s a rich, tawdry history of children and adults being chained to radiators in works of fiction – most recently, Black Snake Moan – and in real life. I assumed folks would realize I was kidding in a “Daily Show” sort of way. And if they clicked on the phrase in question, they would have been linked to another blog post about Paul Howard’s statement that he still bears a grudge over being handcuffed, forcibly removed from Bedford’s courtroom and placed in a holding cell.
Bedford tells me in his letter that he didn’t specifically order Howard to be handcuffed. But he concedes that standard safety protocol calls for bailiffs to use cuffs “when removing uncooperative individuals from the courtroom,” so I’m not convinced he’s making an important distinction.
Anyway, I wanted to clear up any misunderstanding I may have caused. One other correction: I referred to Bottoms as an “Atlanta Magistrate Court judge.” More precisely, she is a part-time judge with the State Court of Fulton County in Atlanta, where she acts as magistrate on evictions and cases involving landlords and tenants. As far as judging goes, that’s the bottom of the food chain.
As this race reaches its conclusion, I’ve got serious concerns about Bottoms’ fluffy judicial resume, as well as a sleazy campaign style that seems most unbecoming of a judicial candidate.
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Did anyone else notice the robocalls for Bottoms coming from Andrew Young?
November 3rd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Did Young say something about rolling back the gains of the civil rights era??