Judge Marni Bryson: Dedicated jurist or AWOL from the bench?

Palm Beach County Judge Marni Bryson’s personal life and long career in the law has been a successful balancing act — until now.

She’s battling new charges by state judicial overseers that for years she has violated rules demanding her “full time and attention” to the job and reporting absences to supervisors.

During 10 years on the bench, the 46-year-old judge has kept a relatively quiet profile by presiding over mostly low-level criminal and civil cases that didn’t make headlines. Yet she’s been thrust into a public fight for the job she loves, with the Florida Supreme Court to decide her fate.

Her defenders insist Bryson is a hard-working jurist who has persisted through major health problems and single parenthood. They say she’s fulfilled assignments from home long before it became commonplace during the coronavirus pandemic.

The judge also been dealing with the distractions of her divorce and lawsuits it spawned that contained nasty blackmail allegations.

But Bryson’s critics say the allegations filed last week by the Judicial Qualifications Commission are long overdue, finally calling out the judge for a dereliction of duty.

Lawyers have complained for some time about her lateness to hearings and her tendency to rush them through jury selection.

“She was late most of the time I appeared in front of her,” said Glenn Mitchell, a West Palm Beach criminal defense lawyer. “It was not five or 10 minutes. It was waiting a couple of hours. After a while you question it.”

Attorney Bill Gelin, main writer for the website JAABlog, which focuses mainly on Broward courthouse news and gossip, said he wrote an article critical of her professionalism after appearing in front of her in 2013.

A Florida Bar complaint against Gelin followed, though no wrongdoing was found. “My experience with her was seven or eight years ago,” Gelin said. “It remains the most needlessly unpleasant day I’ve ever spent in a courtroom.”

Bryson had a particularly volatile exchange with attorney John Carter of Boca Raton in 2018. Bryson found Carter in contempt of court and sent him to jail a few days after he complained about her being more than 90 minutes late for a hearing for his client in a DUI case.

“I think you’re disrespectful to the people of Palm Beach County,” Carter said at the time. “I’m appalled. Never in my 35 years of practice have I ever experienced anything like this.”

Bryson said the contempt was not for Carter’s “unprofessional rant,” but for a violation of court scheduling procedures. Carter ultimately got the contempt charge tossed, said his attorney Mark Solomon of Fort Lauderdale.

“It was an abuse of discretion how [Carter] was treated,” he said.

The judge’s background

A profile of Bryson on the Palm Beach County Bar Association website lists her background and successful career: A Miami native who is the granddaughter, daughter and sister of trial attorneys and the great-granddaughter of a judge, Bryson got a criminal justice degree from University of Florida and her law degree from Nova Southeastern University.

She’s worked as an assistant public defender and as an assistant attorney general, where she led prosecutions of Medicaid fraud in five counties before her first election in 2010. She was re-elected in 2016, beating a challenger who said Bryson wasn’t mature enough to wear the black robes.

In a few cases before the 4th District Court of Appeal, defense attorneys have contended that their clients were denied fair trials because Bryson restricted their time.

In a 2019 opinion, the appeals court overturned an aggravated battery conviction, finding in part that Bryson “unreasonably limited” the defense’s time to ask questions in jury selection to 45 minutes. The court said the judge’s “inflexibility” was unwise, considering the ruling for a new trial.

“Any extension of time would have been far less than the many hours which both sides’ appellate counsel spent on this appeal, and many days less than the amount of time which will be necessary to try this case again,” the appeals court wrote.

But Bryson has touted her ability to run a tight ship as one of her strengths. When in criminal court, she staggered hearings throughout the morning to avoid logjams. She said this enabled more cases to get resolved and reduce her caseload.

Also, Bryson volunteered to try felony murder cases in circuit court on top of her regular responsibilities. She says that showed a willingness to put more work on her plate.

Signs of respect

The judge has earned the respect of many lawyers for her courtroom control.

“She’s always been a hardworking and fair judge in my experience,” said Ian Goldstein, a criminal defense lawyer who has practiced before her numerous times.

And Greg Rosenfeld, a friend of Bryson’s and a local defense attorney, says the judge has been diligently working through personal distractions.

“Judge Bryson struggled with some serious health issues and is the sole caretaker of a small child,” Rosenfeld said, adding that she took sick leave when necessary. “But she always did her work. Needless to say, the timing of this complaint is very bizarre.”

He was referring to her entanglement in a nasty battle in her personal life.

Two years ago, Bryson and high-powered Fort Lauderdale lawyer William Scherer filed competing lawsuits, each accusing the other of blackmail and extortion.

The accusations stemmed from Bryson’s 2015 divorce from James Blake MacDiarmid — the two were arguing over custody of their son, now about 7 years old.

According to Bryson’s lawsuit, Scherer threatened to publicly release photos that were described only as “intimate” if she did not yield to MacDiarmid’s demand. Scherer was representing a woman who was allegedly in an extramarital relationship with MacDiarmid.

The pictures have never been released. Bryson told her attorneys the only intimate photos she could think of were ones in which she chronicled her pregnancy, according to her lawsuit.

Scherer countersued in Broward, accusing Bryson’s lawyers of trying to squeeze him for $10 million. Scherer later withdrew his lawsuit, but Bryson’s is still pending in Palm Beach County; a St. Lucie County judge is presiding.

Scherer, father of Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer, is one of the most politically connected Republican fundraisers in South Florida.

The latest accusations

It’s not clear how Bryson wound up in the crosshairs of the Judicial Qualifications Commission. The JQC’s investigation process is confidential, and the judicial watchdog does not typically disclose the complaints that lead to investigations.

Specifics about the nature of the charges have not been released on the Supreme Court’s public docket.

There are no details as to why Bryson is accused of failing “to devote full time and attention” to her responsibilities from 2016 to 2019. She is also charged with not notifying the chief judge about her absences over the same period.

Chief Judge Krista Marx said Monday she could not comment about a pending case.

Bryson could be reprimanded, suspended, fined or worse if any or all of five charges — violations of state and county judicial rules — are upheld by the Supreme Court.

Judges in Palm Beach County are typically limited to 30 vacation days’ per year, plus unspecified time off for illnesses, judicial education programs and military leave.

All judges in the state are expected to abide by a requirement stating: “The judicial duties of a judge take precedence over all the judge’s other activities.”

This means that a judge is expected to schedule their vacation days around their court duties, according to a 2004 state judicial ethics opinion.

Mixed reviews

A Bar Association survey of lawyers who rate judges on categories such as “diligence and preparedness” and “impartiality” shows that Bryson received mixed reviews in 2019, the most recent report.

The evaluation shows that of 63 anonymous responses, Bryson’s worst category was 34 checks for “needs improvement” in “punctuality and timeliness in rendering rulings and decisions.”

Her best category was 45 excellent and satisfactory ratings for “enforcement of professionalism standards.”

Palm Beach County Senior Judge Barry Cohen, who served as a mentor and a hero to Bryson, said Friday she was well qualified to become a judge and never heard any complaints about her when she worked at the main courthouse in West Palm Beach.

Bryson, paid a $156,377 annual salary, has been assigned to the South County Courthouse in Delray Beach for over a year.

When Cohen faced charges from the JQC in 2013, he turned to attorney Scott Richardson to represent him. That case, over a series of inappropriate remarks, resulted in a public reprimand.

Richardson is now representing Bryson, and Cohen says she’s in the best hands.

“The JQC takes issue with the fact that some of that work was done remotely before the pandemic made much judicial work remote,” Richardson said after the charges against Bryson were filed.

Efforts to reach Bryson and her attorney were unsuccessful. Bryson’s defense will file a formal response to the misconduct allegations.

She sees herself as a devoted public servant who is not ready to give up her gavel. She’s up for re-election next year.

“I just know that I love what I do,” she told the Bar association. “I feel like I have the best job in the world — and I try to do it better each day.”

Marc Freeman can be reached at mjfreeman@sunsentinel.com and on Twitter @marcjfreeman.