Member Article

Judge sacked after coin toss verdict

A US judge who decided a custody dispute by tossing a coin has lost his job. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that Judge James Michael Shull failed to uphold the dignity of the judiciary.

Shull admitted tossing a coin to determine which divorced parent would get a child for Christmas. He said he was trying to encourage the parents to decide the issue themselves, but later acknowledged he was wrong.

The court said: “A judge’s act of tossing a coin in a courtroom to decide a legal issue pending before the court suggests that courts do not decide cases on their merits, but instead subject litigants to games of chance in serious matters without regard to the evidence or applicable law.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .