Movie poster plays role in complaint against judge

TAMPA -- A framed poster from one of Circuit Judge Gregory Holder's favorite movies hangs on the wall in his office.

On the poster for Tombstone, a cowboy stands on a dusty road, ready to draw his pistol. "Justice is coming," the poster says.

That poster is at the center of a complaint filed recently with the state agency that regulates judges.

According to the complaint, Holder brandished the poster at a June 2000 hearing in a bitter, 4-year-old divorce case that he presided over.

After a lengthy hearing in the judge's conference room, the complaint says Holder got angry and walked into his private office. Holder, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, came out carrying the poster from the Western film.

Then he said: "Okay. This applies to this case. It says "Justice is coming.' Folks, take a look at it. All right. It's one of my favorite movies. It's coming. It's here. It's here now.

"It's going to be on that wall tomorrow, okay, because I am just ready to rock and roll, lock and load, drop 50, fire for effect."

Earlier in the day, Holder also got upset about an objection made by the husband in the divorce case, James Bogos, who is also an attorney. According to the complaint, Holder slammed a copy of a law book on the conference room table.

Then he said: "Here I will give you the rules of Court, pull out Chapter 90. Read them, memorize them. If you don't know them, learn them in the next 30 seconds because if you don't state a specific and very relevant -- and I'll use that term loosely -- objection out of that rules of evidence, I'm going to overrule and move on. I'm not here to help any party or litigant in this cause. I don't do it for you and I'm not doing it for anybody else.

"You have tried my patience. I don't accept these garbage forms of question objections. If you ever use it in my court again, I will get very angry. Thank you."

Officials with the Judicial Qualifications Commission declined comment on the complaint, which is confidential under the JQC's rules.

The JQC has already charged Holder with misconduct, saying he gave a false or misleading answer on an application to become a federal judge. Holder has denied the allegation.

In those charges, the JQC said it admonished Holder in February 2001 for an earlier incident where Holder got angry at lawyers in court and threw handcuffs on his desk. The JQC told Holder it considered such actions inappropriate and warned him not to act that way again.

Holder declined to comment Friday on the latest complaint, saying the case, which was filed in 1996, is still pending in court.

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