Running biblical law in an American court, Judge became a nun

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Running biblical law in an American court, Judge became a nun

A well respected Magistrate Judge in Washington DC has turned herself into a nun.

Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew makes an annual salary of $93,732. The average Median Household Income where she lives is $22,890. For her compensation, she is presumably tasked with aside her own prejudices to make decisions in the best interest of the families entering her courtroom, seeking her guidance and expertise. She and her family live a comfortable life in a $185,000, 2500-square foot home in Jefferson City, Tennessee. The home is situated in a quiet suburb, among other similar sized, similarly appointed homes.

As a young African American law student, Ballew attended the University of Tennessee and has been licensed to practice law since 1989. Before being appointed to her current judgeship a few years ago, she worked as a public defender. According to Avvo, a site that rates lawyers, she ranks as a 6.7 out of a possible 10. The site gives particularly high marks for her professional conduct.

All of this information about on Ballew simply adds context, making the judge’s actions last week seem all the more bizarre and erratic.

On what was a typical day in her courtroom, the parents of a baby boy named Messiah Deshawn Martin could not agree upon whose surname the child should carry. The two found themselves before Judge Ballew. It was an ordinary case for the family court, without particularly high stakes for any of the parties. Ballew should have acted as objective arbiter, deciding upon the child’s surname and putting to rest the possibility of any possible further argument on the matter.

Instead in the moment of rendering of her decision, the judge egregiously overstepped her jurisdiction. Betraying the integrity of the office to which she had been appointed, she managed to capture national headlines when in ruling upon the child’s last name, Ballew ordered that the child’s first be changed from Messiah to Martin. His new name becoming Martin DeShawn McCullough.

In an interview with a local affiliate, Ballew justified the bizarre ruling, telling the reporter, “The word Messiah is a title and it’s a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ,”

TheBlot called the judge’s office to find out if she had a history of shirking American law in favor biblical law. However, our call was not returned.

We called the office of Ballew’s supervisor. Again, our call was not returned.

However, we did manage to speak to  Timothy R. Discenza, Disciplinary Counsel for the Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct. It turns out that there is oversight to judicial oversight.  As a form of recourse for boneheaded judicial decisions, the public has the opportunity to petition its grievances directly to the state.

“We act after receiving a complaint regarding judicial conduct, and our investigations are confidential,” said Discenza. “We do not comment on investigations, so we wouldn’t be at liberty to discuss an investigation into a complaint, if one had been filed against the judge in this case.”

Discenza did say that any complainant would be free to discuss a complaint and explained that the filing of one was a fairly simple process One that it seems anyone could do, if one were so inclined to do so.

To do so, click here.

For her part, the child’s mother is appealing the judge’s ruling. The case is out of Ballew’s hands. An appeal will go before the Cocke County chancellor on September 17.

Joel Mazmanian is a DC-area correspondent for The Blot.

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