As a jury weighed the Parkland shooter’s fate, police raided his brother’s home
Washington PostMAY 2022
There's a difference between partiality and humanity, and Scherer's actions clearly fell under the latter: She showed compassion toward the victims and their families of this heinous crime after the conclusion of an emotional trial — an act that shouldn't be punished. Hopefully, this doesn’t discourage judges from being sensitive in similar situations moving forward.
While compassion is important, a judge's duty to impartiality must come first. While well-intentioned, Scherer’s actions — including publicly clashing with the defense attorneys, accusing them of being unprofessional, and wrongly accusing an assistant of threatening her family — called into question her bias. This wasn’t the only case of her openly showing favoritism related to sentencing — a public reprimand is deserved.