Judge Larry Seidlin: Disorder in the Court

Was Judge Larry Seidlin just doing his job in the Anna Nicole Smith case or was he auditioning for a TV show?

Whatever he was doing, whatever his motivation, it was utterly self-serving.

The guy is a nut.

An advocate for Anna Nicole Smith's daughter decided the former model would be buried alongside her son in the Bahamas after a tearful, sometimes blubbering judge gave the attorney the power to make the decision.

Richard Milstein, the court-appointed lawyer for 5-month-old Dannielynn, announced the plans Thursday but gave no time frame for the burial.

Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin, who choked up frequently as he explained his decision, made it abundantly clear what he felt should be done in giving custody of the body to Milstein.

"Who is entitled to custody of the remains of Anna Nicole Smith?" Seidlin wrote in his ruling. "There can be only one proper and equitable answer to that question: Dannielynn, Anna Nicole Smith's only child, heir and next of kin."

Seidlin steered a middle course in a dispute that became more urgent by the day when the medical examiner warned that Smith's body was rapidly decomposing.

..."I want her buried with her son in the Bahamas," he said through tears. "I want them to be together."

...Seidlin teared up earlier Thursday when he abruptly cut short the proceedings to say he had made up his mind. In a sometimes rambling statement, he said "I've been trying to figure out, in a spiritual sense, how to bring it all together."

Judges are human beings.

It's literally impossible for them to completely lose themselves and become unfeeling machines.

That said, Seidlin's behavior was inappropriate.

His manner was not befitting a judge.

He acted like he was playing a part in a low-budget movie.

I think the way he conducted himself was disgraceful.

I understand that people get choked up; but as a judge, Seidlin needed to project at least the illusion that he was of sound mind and being rational.

He was moved. OK.

That's no excuse for him to act as if he were being guided by emotions. The law is the law. No crying judges, please.

He should have shed his tears elsewhere, not on the bench.

Seidlin has his supporters talking to the media, deflecting some of the criticism.

Seidlin's wife acted as her husband's spokeswoman/publicist/agent. Friends came to his defense.

Not since Judge Ito has a black robe so thoroughly failed to mask the colorful personality of the man beneath it.

For more than a week, Florida circuit court Judge Larry Seidlin has run the Anna Nicole Smith court hearing with a jarring combination of comic wisecracks, stunningly personal commentary and naked emotion.

And while the judge has declined to speak to reporters, his wife talked to the ABC News Law & Justice Unit.

"People who know him, and people who meet him on the street all say the same thing, 'You should have your own television show,'" Seidlin's wife, Belinda, said Thursday night.

Seidlin's colorful personality isn't suited to a court of law in the real world.

He became a spectacle in his own courtroom.

Earlier in the week-long hearing, Seidlin told one high-strung blonde lawyer that she was beautiful, and took cell phone calls from his wife. He shared his morning exercise routine with the courtroom and the cameras.

And then there were the inadvertently humorous moments during the hearing.

At one point, referring to a dress being made for Smith's burial, Seidlin's face soured as he expressed his general discomfort over funeral details.

"This is the one area I always ran away from -- the death," Seidlin said.

It prompted amused attorney Stephen Tunstall to note wryly, "But you're a probate judge," referring to the type of judge whose job is to deal with wills.

"I don't think him to be crazy at all,'' said Belinda Seidlin. "I find him to be brilliant, and that's tough to say when you're married to someone for a long time."

It seems that wife Belinda enjoys the limelight, too.

This hearing should not have been about Seidlin.

This wasn't an opportunity for him to joke or play to the cameras.

I didn't find his antics amusing.

He turned his responsibility to settle a matter into a forum to highlight himself, to perform.

I don't find him funny. I find him terribly irresponsible and remarkably selfish.

..."Some people viewing [Seidlin] on television would see him as unorthodox," [lifelong friend Dr. Sheldon] Warman said, "but this is how he's always been and why's he's been elected back into this office every six years since he was in his twenties."

"He has the softest heart you'll ever see," Warman said.

Referring to his friend crying on national television as he read his ruling, Warman said, "He meant that. … That was really him.

"He felt that heat in that courtroom," he added. "He saw everything going on, saw all the fighting between the attorneys, and he wanted to deflate that with his humor."

I suppose the tension in the courtroom was easier to deflate than it would be to deflate Seidlin's ego.


If Seidlin feels compelled to shed any more tears, it should be over the fact that he added to the Anna Nicole Smith post-death circus.

He planted himself in the center ring and he seemed to love it.

Seidlin chose not to bring some much needed dignity to the proceedings. Instead, he became just another performer in this two-week-old circus -- a clown among clowns.
_____________________________

Read more.