Judge Tests Limits of Free Speech with Facebook Jury Remarks - Articles

All Content

Judge Tests Limits of Free Speech with Facebook Jury Remarks

Posted by: Christy Gibson on Aug 10, 2016

A Louisville judge, incensed when a prosecutor questioned his authority to scrap a jury panel because it lacked minorities, did not turn to appeals courts, legal precedent or other avenues typical for aggrieved jurists.

He took to Facebook.

In provocative posts that now threaten to end his judicial career, Judge Olu Stevens, who is black, railed against the white prosecutor, Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Wine.

He wrote that Wine's request that the state Supreme Court review Stevens' decision to dismiss the jurors amounted to an attempt "to protect the right to impanel all-white juries," a charge Wine vehemently denies. Stevens suggested there was "something much more sinister," and wrote that the prosecutor will "live in infamy."

Click here to read the entire story on WSMV-TV Nashville, which was reported by Bruce Schreiner of the Associated Press.