Judge Joe Brown, whose courtroom television show Judge Joe Brown ran for 15 years up until last year, is speaking out about his jail stint.
As we previously reported, Judge Brown was held in contempt of court after getting into a heated argument with Chief Magistrate Dan Michael on Monday. Brown was upset that Michael wouldn’t take a child support case.
"I always used to be a hot shot about protecting people's rights. I was not happy to have my liberty detained even for 30 seconds. That's precious. It's not about the conditions of incarceration, it's about the loss of liberty," he said, adding jail "reenergized" him.
"I shook hands and took pictures with all of the staff down there, the deputy jailers and shook hands with inmates," he told ABC News. "They had me in jail detention assignment down on the first floor. They were getting ready to take me upstairs [to a cell] and I said, 'Oh no you're not! Because you put your sheriff in complicity for what I might do to sue you and it's getting doubled if I go up there."
Although he didn’t have to serve the five days he was sentenced to, Brown said he did not eat during the hours he was in there because he was advised not to.
"They said because the food was now privatized,” he said. “They've had to take too many people to the hospital for food poisoning.”
Michael said Brown’s alleged outburst in court disrupted other peoples’ cases and “ss a result people with real issues were inconvenienced and had to sit in court well into the evening.” He added, “This is not Hollywood. This is the real thing and as an officer of the court he should have known better."
Brown claimed Michael did not have the authority to hold him in contempt or send him to jail. Nonetheless, he said he’s moving forward with his run for Shelby County D.A.