Former TV adjudicator Judge Joe Brown, jailed for contempt of court in Memphis this week, was only trying to unofficially help a woman in a child-support dispute.
Brown, 68, had been sitting in on the March proceedings, when the female defendant recognized him and asked if he would quickly review her case and related paperwork.
At that point, realizing that the woman might be shortchanged of her due process rights, Brown approached the bench on her behalf.
The family court magistrate however, took great offense to his intervention and declared Judge Joe Brown in contempt, allegedly for being verbally abusive to him and other court employees who were present.
“When I insisted that the woman's charges be dismissed, he started talking about I'm not an attorney and so-and-so,” Brown told reporters for ABC News yesterday. "I said 'you know it's wrong -- you're better than this.'”
A warrant for Judge Brown’s arrest on contempt charges was then issued and, following his conviction, he turned himself in on Thursday to serve out a 5-day sentence.
That may not be the end of the matter, though, even if the length of time he has to spend in the slammer is brief:
“It's not about the conditions of incarceration,” the celebrity judge stated from behind bars. “It's about the loss of liberty.”
