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Three Indiana Judges Suspended for Behaving in an ‘Injudicious Manner’ During Drunken White Castle Fight

The Indiana Supreme Court said the judges “gravely undermined public trust in the dignity and decency of Indiana’s judiciary.”

Three Indiana judges involved in a fight that left two of the judges shot at an Indianapolis White Castle have been suspended without pay after the Indiana Supreme Court decided they acted with judicial misconduct. The court said in an opinion that judges Bradley Jacobs, Andrew Adams, and Sabrina Bell “engaged in judicial misconduct by appearing in public in an intoxicated state and behaving in an injudicious manner and by becoming involved in a verbal altercation.” The Indianapolis Star reports that the court’s decision stems from a May incident at a White Castle in Indianapolis, where the three judges—all of whom were described as intoxicated—got in an altercation with two other men that turned violent, and ended with Jacobs and Adams shot.

Jacobs and Adams survived the incident after receiving surgeries. The court’s opinion criticized the judges for not removing themselves from the situation, and “instead, all three joined in a profane verbal altercation that quickly turned into physical violence and ended in gunfire, and in doing so, gravely undermined public trust in the dignity and decency of Indiana’s judiciary.” Judge Adams was the only one to be charged with a crime, and he pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor battery in September.