Bermuda judge told court he was ‘horny’ during murder trial

A now-retired judge in Bermuda has been slammed by the Court of Appeal in England for remarking that he was getting “horny” during a murder trial, according to reports.

Carlisle Greaves, who served as a junior Supreme Court judge, was presiding over the murder trial last fall for defendant Khyri Smith-Williams when he told the court: “All this sex is beginning to get me horny,” the Royal Gazette reported.

Greaves made the comment as a witness in the trial testified that he had shared some of the same women as Smith-Williams, according to the news outlet.

Ultimately, Smith-Williams was found guilty in the 2011 shooting death of Colford Ferguson and sentenced to 35 years in prison last October.

His lawyer, Jerome Lynch, had filed appeal with a higher court, claiming that the judge acted inappropriately during the trial, the Royal Gazette reported.

The Court of Appeal rejected the appeal, but appeal judge Maurice Kay took the opportunity to knock Greaves for his comments.

“In particular, his comment ‘all this sex is beginning to get me horny’ was inappropriate and inimical to the dignity of court proceedings,” Kay said, according to the site.

“Mr. Lynch was justified in criticizing it. However, I do not believe that it damaged the defense or had the potential to undermine the safety of the conviction,” said Kay.

In the appeal, Lynch also argued that the judge did little to stop a witness from using vulgar language in the courtroom.

The witness, Troy Harris, had told the court that Smith-Williams admitted to his involvement in the killing, but said that a man named Rasheed Muhammad actually pulled the trigger.

Harris repeatedly called Muhammad a “f—-t” and a “f—king p—y,” according to transcripts presented to the Court of Appeal.

“Anybody familiar with serious criminal trials, in this jurisdiction in recent years, knows [Greaves] has a very personal style, whereby he engages with witnesses, defendants, juries and advocates in an informal way, often using casual language and rich metaphors,” Kay wrote in his decision.

“In relation to Harris, it was important that the judge should facilitate his evidence, whatever it turned out to be,” Kay wrote. “If he took the view, and I suspect he did, that the best course was to let the witness have his say, subject to the rules of evidence, rather than seek to inhibit him, it seems to me that that was an exercise of judgment which was open to him.”

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