Judge Tells Fast-Food Worker to Get 'Real Job'

It's not Judge G. Todd Baugh's first remark to make headlines
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 25, 2014 7:05 AM CDT
Judge Tells Fast-Food Worker to Get 'Real Job'
FILE - This undated file photo shows District Judge G. Todd Baugh presiding at a hearing in Great Falls, Mont. The Montana Supreme Court will censure Baugh and suspend him without pay for 31 days for saying a 14-year-old rape victim was "older than her chronological age." Justices said in Wednesday's...   (AP Photo/Billings Gazette, Larry Mayer, File)

Just weeks after he was handed a 31-day suspension for suggesting that a 14-year-old girl—who committed suicide after her teacher raped her—was partly to blame, a Montana judge is making headlines again. The line uttered by District Judge G. Todd Baugh that's raising eyebrows this time: He on Monday asked a Billings fast-food worker convicted of vandalism why he can't get a "real job," reports the Billings Gazette. The question stemmed from the fact that Brandon Turell, 21, must pay $13,640 in restitution (in addition to serving 10 years in state custody, with five suspended) for a two-day shooting binge in 2012 that saw him and an accomplice use a BB gun to take out some 100 car windows.

Baugh asked Turell what financial steps he had taken to make good with his victims, and Turell replied that he had a job at Burger King. "Why can’t you get a real job?" Baugh asked. Turell explained he was earning $9.50 an hour; Baugh reiterated that the young man should get a "real job" to work toward paying the restitution. Reuters reports that Turell's sentencing arrangement could possibly allow him to hold a job while living under state supervision. Baugh, for his part, faces a public censure Tuesday by the Montana Supreme Court in connection with the rape case. (Click to read what else the judge said about the rape victim he called "older than her chronological age.")

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