A few years ago, in a small courthouse in Cincinnati, Ohio, something unprecedented and unthinkable happened — something that’s never happened before in all of recorded human history: A judge was sentenced to prison for committing a crime. Up until this moment, which took place in the summer of 2019, no judge had ever done anything illegal for any reason, in any context. You can go back to biblical times if you want to. No judge had ever gone to jail. And that makes sense, of course, because judges are the ones who adjudicate legal problems. So it would make no sense for a judge to cause a legal problem in the first place. That would just be completely backwards. It would be like a postal worker going postal, or a chiropractor breaking someone’s neck, or a firefighter deciding to commit arson. These are things that, by definition, are physically impossible.
And yet, in Cincinnati of all places, it happened. Somehow, in defiance of the laws of physics, a judge named Tracie Hunter was convicted of the crime of corruption. And as you’d expect, especially if you’re a student of history, it was a shocking moment for everyone involved. There were gasps both inside and outside the building. Judge Tracie Hunter herself made it clear that she wouldn’t stand for the decision — as in, she literally wouldn’t stand for it, which meant that a bailiff had to drag her out of the courthouse and place her in a cell. If only for the entertainment value of the footage, let’s play that again quickly:
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