Judge resigns over remarks made in chat room
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A judge has resigned after facing disclosure of racially charged remarks he wrote in an Internet chat room, including statements suggesting that blacks have a biological tendency toward violence.
Richmond General District Judge Ralph B. Robertson is stepping down after 19 years on the job. He stopped hearing cases last week and filed for retirement, which is to take effect April 1.
The Richmond Free Press, a weekly newspaper with a predominantly black readership, reported Thursday that Robertson endorsed the notion that “African-Americans are prone to crime and violence because it is in their genes” and agreed with another chat-room writer who said that some minorities are “people who have no regard for sanitation, courtesy, private property, etc.”
“My heart and my deepest apology go out to the black community of the city of Richmond,” he said in remarks published Thursday in the Free Press.
When reached at his home Thursday by The Associated Press, Robertson would only say that he was sorry, but wouldn’t comment further on the record.
Robertson, 60, decided to leave the bench five years before the end of his term knowing that disclosure of his statements would undermine the perception of his ability to judge cases fairly.
Robert E. Walker, a black defense attorney, said he still considers Robertson “a good person and a good judge.” The comments seemed to be out of character, Walker said, and that Robertson has always decided cases based on the facts and the law.
“I’ve known Judge Robertson for the 17 years that I’ve practiced in front of him and I never had a feeling when I practiced in front of him that he’s racist,” Walker said.
The Free Press first got the judge’s online comments, most of which were posted between Jan. 25 and Feb. 19, from a member of the chat room, and spoke to Robertson, who confirmed that he wrote them.
“I am not a racist,” he wrote, according to the paper. “I am a racialist. The difference being I don’t discriminate against an individual, but I do recognize the fact that there are a lot of differences between races which I assume from a biological standpoint is caused by difference in DNA.
“If DNA controls everything else, why shouldn’t it cause a difference in ability to learn or play sports or a proclivity for violence?” he wrote.
Robertson also criticized civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. as a plagiarist, Jesse Jackson as “a thief, a liar and a traitor to his own people.”
He also wrote that he was saddened by the decline of morals in American society and criticized the civil rights movement, which he participated in when he was younger.
“I have long since removed myself from the civil rights movement and generally see it for the scam that it (is) and was,” he wrote.
Walker said that Robertson’s comments were unfortunate, but said the judge has been a tremendous asset to the community and has helped those who come before him.
“I would say we should take a person as a whole and not destroy him because of some errant comments,” Walker said. “That 19 years of service have got to count for something.”
Robertson was a defense attorney and assistant prosecutor before being appointed to the bench in 1985. He was elected to his fourth six-year term last year.