Judge John Jordan
The Florida Supreme Court has rejected a recommendation to publicly reprimand an Orange County circuit judge for undignified conduct that included asking a Black man at a sentencing hearing about whether he “ever chopped cotton before.”
The state’s Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC) earlier this year called on the high court to publicly reprimand Judge John Jordan of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court. The panel said Jordan told two public defenders to repeatedly “shut up” during the jury-selection phase of a trial in April of last year – and ultimately declared a mistrial because he was “not going to deal with … pettiness like this.”
And in July of last year, Jordan presided over a felony battery case with a Black female defendant, according to the JQC’s Findings and Recommendations of Discipline. Both the defendant and the state agreed that the 33-year-old defendant should complete 30 hours of community service.
Jordan addressed the woman’s great uncle, who was in the courtroom, asking him if he owned land where the niece could work for 30 hours.
“You ever – you ever chopped cotton before?” he asked the great uncle, who is also Black. “You know what that is? You take a hoe and you knock out the weeds. That’ll – That’ll straighten you up real quick doing that stuff.”
Jordan and the JQC agreed to a stipulation that called for the judge to receive the reprimand, which is among the more lenient forms of punishment available to the high court.
“The Supreme Court can act along the full range of actions from taking no disciplinary action to removal from the bench in cases presented by the JQC,” a court spokesman told the Florida Record in an email.
In a July 23 order, the high court rejected the stipulation and the JQC’s findings. The justices declined to offer any reasons for the rejection, but they also ordered the matter sent back to the JQC Investigations Panel for further proceedings.
The JQC’s general counsel, L. Jon Bielby, said he could not comment on a matter of pending litigation.
The JQC’s findings report on Jordan indicated that the judge conceded that the questions and statements identified by investigators were ill-considered.
“In particular, Judge Jordan acknowledges that he failed to consider how his comments, as a judge considering whether to order a Black defendant to ‘work the land,’ immediately followed by a reference to ‘chopping cotton,’ could have been interpreted (and indeed were interpreted) as inappropriate, especially in light of the historically demeaning stereotype associating Black people with picking cotton,” the JQC’s recommendations state.
Jordan also expressed regret that his conduct may have helped to erode the public’s perception of judicial integrity, the report said. But the JQC emphasized that the commission found no evidence that Jordan makes improper, racially driven decisions.
In addition, the judge has a respected reputation based on awards and letters of commendation he has received, according to the JQC, which noted that Jordan was invited in 2011 to join the law advisory committee at a well-known historically Black college, Florida A&M University.
Jordan said he came from a farming background and spent his early years working on the farms of his relatives in Texas.
