by Jay Waagmeester, Florida Phoenix
The Florida Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended Broward County Circuit Judge Gary Farmer, the justices announced Wednesday.
Farmer, who served as Florida Senate Democratic leader for about four months in 2020 and 2021, was recommended to be suspended by Florida’s Judicial Qualifications Commission last month, which concluded he showed “unfitness to serve.” The Supreme Court agreed.
The suspension is without pay and will be effective Monday.
“The Court encourages the Commission to conduct any remaining proceedings promptly, in a manner consistent with the Commission’s rules and the procedural rights of the respondent,” Supreme Court documents state.
The commission investigated comments Farmer made last year, from the bench and in court orders. Some he delivered as “dad jokes” while the commission categorized others as demeaning and potentially humiliating.
“Through his extensive misconduct, occurring over a lengthy period of time, Judge Farmer has damaged the public’s perception of the judiciary and the judicial branch in such a way that he has demonstrated a present unfitness to serve,” the 13-page recommendation of suspension from April states.
Farmer’s response to the commission’s charges last week argued there were “no urgent grounds or genuine exigent circumstances that warrant or require suspension of respondent pending trial or other final outcome of these matters.”
During his service on the bench during the proceedings, “the rendition of justice will not be impaired or undermined,” Farmer’s attorneys wrote.
“Indeed, Respondent has reflected on his comments and learned lessons. He has been striving to exhibit the highest level of professional conduct.”
The disciplinary process stems from an anonymous letter from prosecutors with the State Attorney’s Office in Broward County, according to court filings.
Following the complaint, the investigation found, among other documented instances, that Farmer told a litigant expecting three children with different women: “You were just shooting all over the place! That’s good, do you know their names? First and last? Romantic are you? Don’t tell Susie about Jane don’t tell Jane about Mary God bless you man. One’s enough.”
Later, Farmer told the defendant he was going to put him on pretrial release but “I’m going to order that you wear a condom at all times. For your own good. Ok?! Probation is going to check. No, I’m kidding. I’m kidding.”
Other instances include Farmer “prejudging the outcomes of future cases, not yet before him,” relating to laws permitting deadly force in self-defense.
Some of his “dad jokes” were to lighten the mood in the courtroom, Farmer argued: “‘Spring is here, I got so excited I wet my plants’ and ‘What did the shirt say to the pair of pants? Wassup britches!’” and “I called the incontinence hotline. They told me to hold.”
“While some of the comments or jokes made by Respondent were distasteful, no one other than anonymous prosecutors has filed any complaint in any form against Respondent,” Farmer’s attorneys wrote.
They added that the judge had been experiencing “a sense of depression for the first time in his life” and that “his only relief, and the best part of his day, was his time in court where he believed he was serving a public good and a noble cause.”
“He realizes that what he thought were innocent ‘dad jokes,’ designed to lighten the atmosphere and lessen the tension in the courtroom, were actually ‘bad jokes’ that could undermine confidence in the judicial system by anyone who appears in his courtroom.”
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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