Judge Merrillee Ehrlich Resigns After Snapping At Defendant In Wheelchair [Video]

Judge Merrillee Ehrlich, a Broward County circuit judge, resigned after she was accused of repeatedly snapping at a defendant in a wheelchair in the courtroom.

On April 15, Sandra Faye Twiggs, 59, a woman who suffered from asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, also called COPD, appeared before the court presided by Ehrlich for having a feud with her 19-year-old daughter over a fan during which she scratched her teen daughter, Miami Herald reported.

In a video released of the incident, a coughing and gasping Twiggs is seen being sternly interrogated by Ehrlich. When the defendant tried to explain her daughter’s living situation which involved staying with her part time, Ehrlich lost her patience.

"Excuse me! Don't say anything beyond what I am asking you!" Ehrlich snapped at Twiggs. She further orders Twiggs’ attorney to make her stop talking.

When Twiggs explains her medical condition between bouts of a cough to Ehrlich, she simply tells the deputies present at the courtroom, "Can someone there give her water as a kindness?" and yells at Twiggs saying, "Ma'am, I am not here to talk to you about your breathing treatments!"

Next, she turned to her attorney, yelling: "Will you say something in the microphone so that she can hear you and you can give her instructions about propriety in the court? I'm not going to spend all day with her interrupting me.”

She kept on cutting off Twiggs’ testimony, saying, “You've already said too much!”

Carolyn Porter, a family friend of Twiggs, said the courtroom appearance had rattled Twiggs so much that once released from jail, she was starving, dizzy and suffering from shortness of breath. She also had trouble getting her medications in the jail, Porter said.

A day after she was released, Twiggs was found dead in her bed on Wednesday by her sister.

“My mom is gone and there is nothing I can do about it,” said Michelle Ballard, Twiggs’ daughter. “I’m now a teenager who will have to bury her mother.”

“Yes people go to jail but they don’t have to be treated like animals because they're in jail. ... That courtroom, that jail cell was the last life she lived — that's the way she lived the last days of her life,” Porter said.

Following Twiggs’ death, Broward's elected public defender, Howard Finkelstein, demanded Ehrlich be banned from the criminal courthouse.

"It is not appropriate for anyone to endure that kind of treatment," said Finkelstein's chief assistant, Gordon Weekes. "All that was required was a bit of patience, and a bit of respect to allow this lady to speak, to gather herself and to breathe."

Finkelstein also penned a letter to Broward's chief judge, Jack Tuter, saying, Ehrlich "demonstrated aggressive and tyrannical behavior and revealed her lack of emotional fitness to sit on the bench," during Twigg’s hearing. He called the judge's behavior "shocking, and an embarrassment to Broward County."

The reason behind Ehrlich’s resignation is not clear. It is also not known when the resignation took place or from when it will go into effect.