EDITORIAL

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Meek Mill wasn’t capping when he said his judge was doing him dirty, allegedly. . The same Philadelphia judge who jailed the rapper, and who he essentially accused of having a vendetta against him, has had her criminal cases reassigned, and now she’s suing.

The Philadephia Inquirer reports that Common Pleas Court Judge Genece Brinkley has been transferred to civil court and all of the pending criminal cases she was initially tasked with have been reassigned. Brinkley is the same judge who jailed Meek Mill for a parole violation in 2017.

The judge’s behavior while she was overseeing Meek’s case had most anyone taking a look at the details saying she was holding a grudge. For example, in 2018, the Philadelphia District Attorney recommended Meek’s 2008 conviction, for which the rapper at the time was sitting in jail for because of the aforementioned parole violation, should be dismissed. However, Brinkley refused to toss the charges despite the DA noting Meek had already served time for the charges.
“Like many who are currently incarcerated, I was the victim of a miscarriage of justice — carried out by an untruthful officer, as determined by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, and an unfair judge,” said Meek in New York Times op-ed in 2019.
Meek was eventually released on bail, but only after much outcry at the audacity of his treatment by the justice system (the old criminal case was dismissed after he pled guilty to a misdemeanor firearm charge). Flash forward to 2022, and Brinkley’s behavior on the bench is still looking funny in the light, and she’s now claiming that she is the actual victim.
Per the Philadelphia Inquirer:
The unfolding legal battle is the latest chapter in a months-long conflict between Common Pleas Court Judge Genece Brinkley and judicial leadership, a feud that began in part over questions about whether Brinkley was showing up to the courthouse on time or managing her caseload effectively. Since the reassignment, lawyers and judges who have reviewed dozens of Brinkley’s cases have discovered a history of her appearing to impose illegal sentences, allow sentences to run past their maximum date, or failing to swiftly address cases remanded to her by higher courts.
This summer, Brinkley, who is Black, filed a gender and racial discrimination complaint against two supervising judges on the court, both of whom are also Black women. And earlier this month, she turned to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court seeking to reverse the decision to reassign her cases, saying in a petition that it “raises unwarranted suspicions about [her] integrity and performance.”

A judge coming under question is a big deal due to the power they wield, deciding to imprison or free someone through what’s supposed to be a lens of justice. Since Brinkley’s transfer, her past cases have come under review by lawyers and judges to see if there are more examples of unseemly judicial behavior. What has been found so far, are numerous cases of lengthy prison terms for suspect parole violations, with many now being outright dismissed, or cases of parolees getting his with the jig.
In the weeks since the reassignment of Brinkley’s cases, lawyers and other judges have been reviewing dozens of matters she presided over and discovered a range of issues. At hearings this month addressing her open probation cases, for example, one lawyer called the situation a “mess.” And Common Pleas Court Judge Mia Perez — who presided over the hearings — was visibly bewildered by some matters that crossed her desk.
In one, Brinkley had sentenced Jeremy Speedling to three years’ probation for a 2019 simple assault and theft. But after Speedling moved to New York, his public defender said, Brinkley sent a letter to his probation officer there changing the terms of his supervision — and then found him in violation and ordered him jailed for 11½ to 23 months.
Brinkley “found [Speedling] in violation for terms he wasn’t aware of,” said the public defender, Elisa Downey-Zayas.
Bruh…
Read the full, disturbing and maddening story right here. Meek picked an inopportune time to leave Twitter, eh?