In a Rome, Georgia courtroom recently, defendant Denver Fenton Allen, on trial for murder, decided that it would be best for his own future if he got into a shouting match with the judge presiding over his case. The judge is Bryant Durham Jr., a superior court judge in Floyd County, where Rome is located.
The hearing lasted only 11 minutes, but what was contained in those 11 minutes you have to see to believe.
After one vulgar remark from Allen, this happened:
Durham: I — I am finding — I’m finding you in contempt of court,” Durham said, after Allen made a obscene comment.
Allen: I don’t care.
Durham: I know you don’t. And I sentence you to twenty days for that. And if you say anything else, I’m going to add twenty days for everything you say.
Allen: F— you.
Durham: Forty days.
Allen: F— you again.
Durham: Sixty.
Allen: Go f— yourself.
Durham: A year.
Allen: Your mama.
Durham: Ten years.
Allen: (expletive) my (expletive)
https://youtu.be/BofddwtPBPw
“You know something, this is going to be an interesting trial,” Durham said after another crass comment from Allen, who is on trial for a fatal attack on a fellow inmate back in August of last year.
The exchanges only went downhill from there, as Durham inexplicably said Allen looked like “a queer.” That naturally prompted some anger, and by the end of that exchange, Allen went for the jugular:
“How about this?” Allen said. “I’ll kill your whole family. When I get in this trial, I will murder your whole family. I’ll cut your children up into pieces. I’ll knock their brains out with a f—— hammer and feed them to you.”
Interestingly, though Judge Durham was clearly provoked by Allen, he could be in serious trouble for the remarks he made, according to the AJC:
“The judge, while provoked in the extreme, made comments that could land him in trouble with the state judicial ethics agency. He not only exchanged vulgarities with Allen, he also said it was his “guess” that he’d find Allen guilty and that Allen would find out ‘how nasty I really am.’”
If you want to read the entire transcript, you can do so here. But don’t do that in a public place. Not only because of what’s in this tete-a-tete, but because you don’t want to annoy people around you by laughing so hard. That is, unless you’re stunned into silence by what was said.
[Washington Post/Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
