I’ll concede there’s a time and place for judges who bring up pop culture — if they’re trying too hard to be funny or hip or just relevant — like when 66-year old New York Southern District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin recently footnoted a reference in a court opinion to Beyoncé Knowles’ husband, a.k.a. rapper, record producer, sometime actor, and successful entrepreneur Jay-Z.
But there’s also a time and a place when “judicial humor is neither judicial nor humorous” and can even get a judge in trouble.
A conflict of interest.
Moreover, pop cultural references and particularly, musical segues used out of court can be unexpectedly embarrassing, too.
Which brings me back to Judge Wade “No shame in my game” McCree last mentioned in October and who is back in the news.
Last time, the Detroit, Michigan jurist was being censured for his flippancy after being outed for texting his naked judicial torso photo to his bailiff’s cellphone.
But as it now turns out, the Third Circuit Court jurist faces new allegations of hooking up with a complaining witness in a child support case against that woman’s ‘ex’ in a case the judge happened to be contemporaneously deciding.
“In deep (expletive).”
According to The Detroit News, this latest scandal came to the attention of Wayne County prosecutors, the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission, God and everyone else — only after Judge McCree complained that his now former paramour, Geniene La’Shay Mott, was supposedly stalking and extorting him.
No charges, though, are going to be brought against Mott. But as for the judge, to quote an aptly worded text message, he’s “in deep (expletive)” – over allegedly carrying on an affair with Mott while at the same time presiding over her child-support case against her ex. She’s also disclosed she’s pregnant with his child.
L’Affaire McCree blew up thanks to Mott who shared revealing text messages from the judicial phone number with local news media. She claims the texts came from Judge McCree.
One text message Mott shared with MyFox Detroit News and reported by Charlie Leduff and purportedly from McCree reads,
“My Judicial Tenure Commission has me nervous, as you might expect. I have to be real careful until this matter is put to rest… you are the complaining witness on a case that is before me. Naturally if it got out that we were seeing each other before your B.D.’s (baby daddy) case closed, everybody could be in deep (expletive).
“Why you want to spend time with a man like me remains a mystery, but if you’ll have me… then as Bill Withers said, “use me up!” SMOOCHES.”
All I can add is that given Judge McCree’s “ain’t no shame” weakness for popular culture, especially old R & B — at least he didn’t text Mott any saucy references to Clarence Carter’s Strokin.‘
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Photo Credits: “Red lips isolated in white,” by TaniaSaiz at Flickr via Creative Commons-license requiring attribution; Geniene La’Shay Mott and Wade McCree (Facebook.com) posted by Detroit News at http://cmsimg.detnews.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=C3&Date=20121207&Category=METRO01&ArtNo=212070411&Ref=AR&Profile=1409&MaxW=640&Border=0&Prosecutors-refer-censured-judge-tenure-commission-latest-sex-flap ;”Minx yawn,” by annieb at Flickr via Creative Commons-license requiring attribution; “Bob,” by patti haskins at Flickr via Creative Commons-license requiring attribution;
