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MEXICAN justice assaults fellow judges
MEXICO CITY - A Mexican judge sprang from his chair to push and punch two fellow justices during a court session, adding to a string of embarrassments for Mexico's scandal-plagued judicial system.
The head of the Morelos state appeals court said on Thursday that Justice Miguel Angel Falcon had brought shame to the court and faced possible impeachment, though he could not be immediately suspended following the Wednesday attack.
The stocky Mr Falcon got mad at judge Ruben Jasso, at one point calling him "stupid", then became enraged when Mr Jasso accused Mr Falcon of insulting him.
As Mr Jasso spoke, Mr Falcon leapt from his chair, rushed over to Mr Jasso and began pummelling him, apparently knocking him to the floor. Another justice who got in his way was knocked back into his chair.
The incident in Morelos follows a chain of other cases that have stained judicial reputations.
Earlier this month, an appeals court in the western state of Jalisco freed drug kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero, who had been sentenced to 40 years in prison for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of US Drug Enforcement Agency agent Enrique Camarena, and was 12 years short of finishing that sentence. But the court ordered his release on Aug 9, saying he had been improperly tried in a federal court for state crimes.
The attorney-general's office called the ruling "unsustainable", and last week asked the Supreme Court to step in.
On Tuesday, the National Human Rights Commission declared that a former chief justice of the nation's Supreme Court, as well as Mexico City court officials, had misused the justice system in a vendetta against the justice's former girlfriend, the mother of his two autistic children, keeping her in prison for about a year on trumped-up charges.
Former chief justice Genaro Gongora was fighting her lawsuit to gain higher child-support payments. He accused her of illegally keeping property meant for the two children, even though she lived with the boys.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEXICO CITY - A Mexican judge sprang from his chair to push and punch two fellow justices during a court session, adding to a string of embarrassments for Mexico's scandal-plagued judicial system.
The head of the Morelos state appeals court said on Thursday that Justice Miguel Angel Falcon had brought shame to the court and faced possible impeachment, though he could not be immediately suspended following the Wednesday attack.
The stocky Mr Falcon got mad at judge Ruben Jasso, at one point calling him "stupid", then became enraged when Mr Jasso accused Mr Falcon of insulting him.
As Mr Jasso spoke, Mr Falcon leapt from his chair, rushed over to Mr Jasso and began pummelling him, apparently knocking him to the floor. Another justice who got in his way was knocked back into his chair.
The incident in Morelos follows a chain of other cases that have stained judicial reputations.
Earlier this month, an appeals court in the western state of Jalisco freed drug kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero, who had been sentenced to 40 years in prison for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of US Drug Enforcement Agency agent Enrique Camarena, and was 12 years short of finishing that sentence. But the court ordered his release on Aug 9, saying he had been improperly tried in a federal court for state crimes.
The attorney-general's office called the ruling "unsustainable", and last week asked the Supreme Court to step in.
On Tuesday, the National Human Rights Commission declared that a former chief justice of the nation's Supreme Court, as well as Mexico City court officials, had misused the justice system in a vendetta against the justice's former girlfriend, the mother of his two autistic children, keeping her in prison for about a year on trumped-up charges.
Former chief justice Genaro Gongora was fighting her lawsuit to gain higher child-support payments. He accused her of illegally keeping property meant for the two children, even though she lived with the boys.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
