Parkland Judge Should Be Publicly Reprimanded: Commission

A Florida commission concluded Monday that Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer should be publicly reprimanded for her conduct during the six-month trial of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz. The Judicial Qualifications Commission–comprised of judges, lawyers and citizens– found in its report that Scherer violated several rules, showed bias towards the prosecution and, at times, “allowed her emotions to overcome her judgement.” It added: “Judge Scherer unduly chastised defense counsel, wrongly accused defense counsel of threatening her children … failed to curtail vitriolic statements directed to defense counsel, and embraced members of the prosecution after sentencing.” The commission reported their findings to the Florida Supreme Court, which will make the final decision regarding Scherer’s conduct. Either way, she’ll be retiring from the bench on June 30—she submitted her resignation letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis last month, without giving a reason why. However the commission confirmed it was not part of any deal struck with the 46-year-old former prosecutor.