Jim Brown Sentenced To Jail
Former football great Jim Brown today was sentenced to six months in jail for refusing to accept terms of his probation for vandalizing his wife's car.
Municipal Court Judge Dale S. Fischer stayed the jail term pending appeal.
Defense attorney Frank Williams Jr. asked the judge to reconsider Brown's misdemeanor vandalism sentence, saying conditions of probation that included domestic violence counseling and community service were inappropriate.
The crime of vandalism "certainly does not warrant the type of sentence that was imposed," Williams said. Brown has refused to enroll in counseling or perform his community service obligation.
Fischer sentenced Brown to a year of domestic violence counseling after a jury convicted him of vandalizing his wife's car during a June 15 argument at their Hollywood Hills home. Monique Brown wasn't hurt.
The judge also ordered the former Cleveland Browns star to spend 40 days on a work crew cleaning up streets or do 400 hours of community service, pay $1,800 in fines and serve three years' probation.
"We are talking about J.B. getting on his knees and doing a little cotton-picking or a little dancing like a lot of folks," Brown said at an earlier court appearance.
Brown opposes domestic violence conditions because a jury convicted him only of vandalizing his wife's car. The panel acquitted him of making a terrorist threat against her.
He was rebuffed Dec. 14 in an attempt to disqualify Fischer, accusing the judge of bias against black men because she was a leader of the Los Angeles chapter of American Inns of Court, a legal group he described as extremist.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Kazuharu Makino denied the motion.
American Inns of Court, whose Los Angeles chapter Fischer presided over last year, is a nationwide professional legal organization to mentor young lawyers, improve skills and advance ethics. It was founded in 1980 by Supreme Court Justice Warren E. Burger.
Brown called it a "radical and extremist group of white upper-class women who target men of color, including Jim Brown."
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