A Florida judge won’t be returning to the bench after video emerged of her berating a woman with emphysema during a hearing. The woman was found dead in her home two days later.
Sandra Twiggs, 59, who suffered from asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, appeared via live video stream before Judge Merrilee Ehrlich on April 15. She can be heard coughing during the bond hearing while seated in a wheelchair.
Twiggs had been charged with a misdemeanor offence after getting into a fight with her daughter.
Ehrlich repeatedly interrupts Twiggs during the hearing, telling her not to talk.
“Excuse me,” the judge shouts in remarks recorded on video. “Don’t say anything beyond what I am asking you.”
While Erhlich appeared to show little sympathy for Twiggs’ condition during the hearing, at one point she asks if someone could get a drink for the accused.
“Do you need water? Just nod your head,” Ehrlich said, before cutting off Twiggs as she attempted to explain her health condition.
“I’m not here to talk to you about your treatment,” she snapped.
“I’m not going to spend all day with her interrupting me,” Ehrlich told Twiggs’ attorney.
Twiggs was released without bond. Ehrlich told the woman she would need to check in with a court office after her release.
“You have to arrange for someone to carry you if you cannot get there yourself,” Ehrlich said.
Twiggs was reportedly found dead by her family in her home on April 17.
Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein called Ehrlich’s conduct “aggressive and tyrannical behavior” that “revealed her lack of emotional fitness to sit on the bench” in a letter to Broward Chief Administrative Judge Jack Tuter.
Tuter is reported to have told Ehrlich not to return to the courthouse because of the incident.
