Florida judge criticized for castigating runaway foster child

MIAMI — A child-welfare judge drew the ire of his chief and local children's advocates when he told a 15-year-old runaway foster child she would end up a "toothless, dead crack whore" if she didn't mend her ways.

Exasperated that the girl was refusing to return to a home where she said her caregiver hit and cursed at her, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Spencer Eig lectured the sobbing teen about making bad choices during a hearing Tuesday.

"You're throwing your life away," Eig told the girl. "You could end up on the street toothless. You've seen these toothless hags on the street? You know how they get there? They blow their opportunities in life when they're 15. They run away ... people turn them into whores."

He added, "Toothless, dead crack whore; dead at age 19? Is that the destiny you're looking for?"

The next day, after two attorneys who had been in court complained about Eig's comments, Miami-Dade chief juvenile judge Cindy Lederman apologized to the girl.

"That should never have happened," Lederman told the girl. "I'm so sorry."

Jacqui Colyer, the new South Florida administrator for the Department of Children and Families (DCF), said she intends to discuss the girl's case — and the proper treatment of abused and neglected children in court — with Eig this week.

The Miami judiciary's spokeswoman, Eunice Sigler, said Eig expressed regret at the language he used to scold the teen.

"The child in this case had been running away," Sigler wrote in a short statement. "Judge Eig regrets that the language he used was strong, but ... his intention was to help, not harm."

The girl entered state care after her mother's chronic drug abuse led to persistent neglect. The mother's rights to raise the girl were terminated.

The girl had been living with a school-bus driver under the authority of DCF. In recent weeks, caseworkers testified, she ran away from the home, though she continued to go to school every morning.

At the hearing Tuesday, Eig asked the girl why she ran away. At first, the girl replied, "Cause she mean." But a few moments later, she told the judge the woman hit her and cursed at her.

Eig told the teen she had no better alternatives. "It's time for you to get over whatever bad experiences you had," he said, adding that she would be treated worse the next place child-welfare administrators sent her.

Experts in judicial ethics said the judge's remarks were inappropriate, even if he was trying to scare the teen into making better choices.

Bob Jarvis, a professor of legal and judicial ethics at Nova Southeastern University's law school, said a judge — who sits up on a pedestal in an intimidating black robe — can do real psychological harm to a child in court. And, by definition, children in child-welfare court already have been the victims of abuse or neglect.

"For children in dependency hearings, it's such an unpleasant experience to begin with," Jarvis said. "Then to be castigated in this way has the potential to do much more serious long-term damage."