Courtroom video of Jefferson District Court Judge Amber Wolf went viral, after a defendant said jail employees refused to provide her trousers and feminine hygiene products for days.
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A furious judge has blasted prison staff for allowing a woman into her courtroom half-dressed – having refused her pants or hygiene products for three days.
That comment was in response to the public defender’s claims that her client had spent three days in Metro Corrections on a shoplifting charge and was refused trousers and feminine hygiene products while she was there.
-COS Clark, reacting to Judges comments that inmate is standing in front of her with “no trousers on” arranges for inmate to get jail uniform per Judges request to “get her covered up”.
Yep, no trousers. Judge Wolf was so shocked at this that she called up the jail to ask how this could have even happened. Steve Durham, a spokesman for the jail, said the woman had not been in custody long enough to be given a jail jumpsuit.
Wolf fully apologised to the defendant once she returned to the courtroom fully clothed.
“Can we give her something to cover up with?”
“She is not dressed from the waist down from my courtroom”.
“I don’t care what it is”, she told court officials. “What the hell is going on?” says District Court Judge Amber Wolf. According to her lawyer, she had asked for a jumpsuit and was denied feminine hygiene products by the Jefferson County Jail. The defense attorney also added that some were being denied showers.
“I just want to tell you how incredibly sorry I am that you’ve been treated this way”, Wolf told the woman. Wolf believed that for this offense, the woman should have been in jail for one day and then immediately released.
“Am I in the ‘Twilight Zone?'” Wolf said in court.
Judge Wolf says she couldn’t explain why they did what they did, but said Metro Corrections officials told her it wouldn’t happen again. The nation has gotten a taste of what it’s like for female prisoners through fictionalized programming like Orange Is the New Black, but late last week, we were able to see what may be a typical prison experience through the eyes of a female defendant. “I’ve never seen it happen”. The woman was detained for not completing a diversion program on a 2014 shoplifting charge and was released with time served and $100 fine.
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Wolfe said the treatment of the woman was inhumane and unacceptable.
