Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Woman given 30-day sentence for Blasphemy

Well, if the headline had said that, then maybe people would be up in arms about it:

A woman facing a drug possession charge got a harsh lesson in justice after a Miami-Dade judge sentenced her to 30 days in jail for flipping him the bird at a hearing Monday.

Penelope Soto, 18, was arrested for possession of Xanax and was brought before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jorge Rodriguez-Chomat Monday, where she was asked about her assets.

Soto, who was sporting orange jail clothes and smiled and stroked her hair through the proceeding, laughed when she was asked how much her jewelry was worth.

"It's not a joke, you know, we're not in a club now," Rodriguez-Chomat told her. "We are not in a club, be serious about it."

"I'm serious about it, you just made me laugh," Soto replied. "You just made me laugh, I apologize. It's worth a lot of money."

"Like what?" the judge asked.

"Like Rick Ross. It's worth money," she said.

The judge, not understanding the odd reference to the South Florida rapper, asked Soto if she's taken any drugs in the past 24 hours.

"Actually, no," she replied.

Rodriguez-Chomat set her bond at $5,000 and said "bye,bye," and Soto laughed and replied "Adios."

Annoyed, Rodriguez-Chomat summoned her back and reset her bond at $10,000, shocking Soto.

"Are you serious," she asked.

"I am serious. Adios," he replied.

Soto started to walk away when she flipped Rodriguez-Chomat her middle finger and blurted "[expletive] you."

She was called back again and Rodriguez-Chomat gave her a 30-day sentence for contempt of court.

I don’t necessarily agree with the woman’s attitude or her behavior, but the Judge was clearly upset that she wasn’t taking him, or his authority, seriously.  She was being charged with possession of Xanax, which as far as I know isn’t even a serious problem on the substance abuse spectrum, so of course she regarded it all as a joke.

For the Statist, the State is to be regarded as a religion and the officials within it as its priest or gods.  The parallels are all there.  If you replace the term “Press Secretary” with “High Priest” for example, you’ll have an idea of how this works.

On a side note, what kind of judge has an hyphenated name?  Seriously, that’s a disqualification in my book for any position of authority because it is quite clear this judge can’t even run his own household, let alone his courtroom.