On Monday’s Politics Nation with Al Sharpton on MSNBC, during a segment on the NFL/Ray Rice domestic violence scandal, the issue of the wife-beating U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller finally made it on to air, thanks to MSNBC contributor Goldie Taylor who was joining Sharpton along with CBS Sports Radio reporter Dana Jacobson to discuss the latest in the NFL case.
Fuller, as The BRAD BLOG has been fairly relentlessly covering over the past month, was arrested for beating his wife bloody in a hotel room in August, before being allowed to take a plea deal allowing him off the hook with a pre-trial diversionary program that would expunge his record entirely, and leave him to continue his life-time appointment to the federal bench in the Middle District of Alabama. Fuller, a George W. Bush appointee, can only be removed from his $200,000/year job via impeachment by the U.S. Congress.
While the Rice case has been covered extensively over the past week by both the corporate media and elected officials, following the public release of a video showing the NFL star knocking out his wife in a hotel elevator, the Fuller matter has received very little coverage. As we reported last week, it’s also received very little outrage from elected officials in Congress who might otherwise have brought articles of impeachment by now, had their been video tape of Fuller’s bloodied wife pleading for an ambulance and help from police at Atlanta’s Ritz-Carlton hotel in early August.
Following a segment concerning the 16 female U.S. Senators who wrote to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell last week to demand a “zero tolerance policy” for domestic abusers in the league, Taylor noted the irony of the Senators failing to call for the impeachment of Fuller, despite the fact that, unlike in the NFL, those elected officials actually have direct control over the removal of federal jurists from the bench.
Beginning at around the 7:10 mark in the video posted below, in response to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D)’s appearance on Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS explaining the Senators’ demand for accountability from Goodell, Taylor broached the topic of Fuller…
REV. AL SHARPTON: Mark Fuller, for our viewers who don’t know, is a federal judge who had been…
TAYLOR: Absolutely, a federal judge…who beat his wife here in Atlanta, got a diversionary program, but no one has called for his impeachment…
SHARPTON: …and still on the bench!
TAYLOR: …why not that?
SHARPTON: Still on the bench.
TAYLOR: …and still on the bench, and still has his job.
DANA JACOBSON: Because the NFL is in the spotlight right now, and I think that’s a big part of it…
Note to Jacobson: The “NFL is in the spotlight right now”, because you folks in the corporate media have finally helped put them there. That’s fine, and certainly long overdue. But you can also help put a member of the federal bench who sits in judgment of others, and who arguably beat his wife far more viciously than Rice did, and who also appears to be a repeated wife abuser, in that same spotlight.
As a Twitter user aptly commented tonight in response to the MSNBC segment this afternoon, “#MarkFuller is more of a threat to society than Ray Rice ever will be.”
True. In any event, thanks to Taylor for finally bringing this issue to MSNBC viewers. Perhaps it’ll catch on. It damned well should.
Here’s the complete video from the 9/15/2014 episode of Politics Nation with Al Sharpton. Much more of our coverage of this case is linked below it…
UPDATE 9/17/2014: MSNBC’s Chris Hayes plays portion of 911 call from Fuller’s wife, in which she is heard being repeatedly struck. Full story now here…
Recently related stories at The BRAD BLOG:
• 8/11/2014: “Federal Judge in Don Siegelman Case Arrested, Charged with Abusing Wife in Atlanta Hotel”
• 8/25/2014: “Federal Judge Who Was Arrested for Beating His Wife (and Who Sentenced Don Siegelman) Is Now Hoping to Avoid Prosecution Altogether”
• 9/5/2014: “BREAKING: Federal Judge Who Presided Over Siegelman Case and Who Recently Beat His Own Wife Bloody Strikes Deal to Avoid Prosecution”
• 9/10/2014: “NFL’s Ray Rice Loses Job for Knocking Out Wife, Federal Judge Mark Fuller Keeps Lifetime Appointment After Beating Wife Bloody”
• 9/15/2014: “Republican Senior Federal Judge, Domestic Abuse Experts Call for Accountability for Wife-Beating U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller”
Nice one Brad … keep connecting those dots….
For the eleventyseventh time:
If you’re white you’re alright
If you’re brown, stick around
If you’re black, stay back
I first heard this 60 years ago, and not much has changed, except the browns have sunk a notch
Keep it simple. Consider all circumstances and facts of the case, including victim statements, etc.
1st case: 1-2 yrs of anger management with the stipulation that another incidence of domestic assault is grounds for immediate termination.
2d case: Out
Seems fair enough. Many of these people need help, no reason to destroy their lives.
Columnist Robert Stacy McCain appears to have entered a competition to be regarded as America’s premier chauvinist jerk. He claims that Ray Rice punched his then-fiancée in the face because feminists have “turned men and women into equals.”
I’m gonna stick to the FOX version, it was the railing. Funny how you can be right and so, so, wrong
Francis @ 3 said:
So, just curious here. Would you feel the same if Judge Fuller had beaten a random person on the street bloody over and again and dragged her around by the hair? Or if Rice had punched a stranger in an elevator? In those cases, you’d also say “no reason to destroy their lives”?
How about if Fuller beat the crap out of your wife or daughter? Same thing? Give them another chance? No jail time? Just anger management classes once a week for a while?
BTW, the other flaw in your short-sighted suggestion is that, for example in Fuller’s case, he was already accused of a former wife of beating her (and their kids) up. But because there were no charges, it’s as if it never existed. Now that he’s beaten his second wife bloody, it will be as if it never existed as well, since he’s being allowed a pre-trial diversion program to take anger management classes and not destroy his life. Just as you advise.
So, next time he does it, it’ll be as if it never happened before…even if the next time is the time he kills someone.
So, still sticking by your suggestion?
Francis @3 appears to have emerged from some sort of time warp.
There was a time in this country, like the 1950s, when domestic violence was treated as a family matter.
That’s certainly no longer the case. At the national level, Congress passed three successive Violence Against Women Acts.
Both of these two cases involve criminal acts.
While you display sympathy towards the perpetrators of domestic violence — “Many of these people need help, no reason to destroy their lives” — your comment fails to take into account the reasons why “domestic violence” is treated as a criminal act when it entails a violent act. Those acts can become progressively more violent, to include such crimes as rape and murder.
As recited by Wikipedia:
So excuse me if I am less than impressed by your “sweep-the-problem-under-the-rug” suggestion.
chris hayes mentioned fuller last night on his show and promised a follow up
good job,lets keep it going and get this “gentleman” impeached