George Orwell in the Maryland Court System?

You can't make this stuff up.  Really.  In fact, I wish I or someone else was making up the story I'm about to recount for you.  As you'll see momentarily, these events belong in a George Orwell novel, and not in a Maryland court.  

Let first start out by noting that this story came to the Washington Post via Courtland Milloy, who is an opinion columnist, not a reporter.  Maybe they should switch Milloy's hat and title because this story should have been on WAPO's front page when it first happened in late July.

So, here's the rundown.  A judge in La Plata Maryland used a stun-cuff on a defendant who was representing himself, poorly as it turns out.  That is, the judge didn't like the pace the defendant was using or the case law he was citing.  So, instead of enduring what teachers have to endure everyday, the judge, Robert Nalley, ordered a deputy in the courtroom to administer a 50,000 volt shock to the defendant/legal council via a bracelet attached to his ankle.  The defendant is described in multiple accounts as falling to the ground "screaming" and "writhing in pain."     

No, I'm not joking.

This really happened.  You can read the first journalist report about it here.  Props to the journalist, Ruben Castaneda and his paper the Baltimore Post-Examiner. 

Milloy's piece rightly focused on the human rights abuse entailed in this act.  As he notes, electric shock cannot legally be administered because a judge doesn't like what he's hearing.  It can only be used if the defendant is about to hurt himself or someone else.  And anyway, rules aside, when did the court system become a site for torture, a "little Guantanamo" as Milloy put it? 

Let me focus in on another element.  The defendant, Delvon King,apparently holds a number of anti-government ideas.  In particular, King believes he is a "sovereign citizen" and as such not under the jurisdiction of the judge. 

This sort of language is reminiscent of the militia movement of the 1990s and more recently by Cliven Bundy in Nevada, a rancher who feels entitled to use Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Land without paying for it.

I am no fan of anti-government rhetoric.  Civilized society requires government, and I would obviously include a judical system as part of effective government.  But, in a civilized society power must come restraint.  Nalley failed that test miserably.  He also just gave anti-government types across the country some evidence that their conspiracies might not be so far off the mark after all.  Well done Nalley, you've just become the boogey man incarnate.  I bet your mother is proud. 

I hope he is removed from the bench immediately and punished accordingly.  His behavior is stomach churning.