Rick and Morty reenact the State of Georgia Vs. Denver Fenton Allen, which went viral because of the profanity-laced exchange between the defendant & judge. Justin Roiland voices both cartoon characters, which is fitting as the childish back-and-forth sounds like someone arguing with themselves.
The foul-mouthed defendant clearly got under the skin of Superior Court Judge Bryant Durham Jr., who sentenced him to 10 years for contempt of court. Allen propositioned the judge in exchange for a fair trial but Durham suggested he’d have to do it for the entire jury. When Allen bragged about being well-endowed, the judge commented that the women must love him but Allen said he only likes boys.
“You know, you look like a queer,” Durham retorted. He followed up with a Trumpesque defense of the intended insult. “I didn’t call you one. I said you looked like one.”
The intercourse climaxes with Allen threatening to “jack off” on the judge, who dared him to do it.
The exchange is strikingly similar to the South Park episode “Fourth Grade.” Mr. Garrison advises the new teacher, Ms. Choksondik, who is having trouble with the class clown, Eric Cartman.
“Look, you can’t counter a profane command with an idle threat!” Garrison explains. “You must extinguish it with a vulgar suggestion! When a child says, ‘Suck my balls,’ you say, ‘Present them.'”
Fighting fire with fire may work in a cartoon but in real life you just get burned.
Durham immediately recused himself from case and reported the incident to the Judicial Qualification Commission (JQC). The judicial monitoring agency found that he violated to two canons of judicial conduct relating to impropriety and impartiality.
“Rather than de-escalating the situation, you engaged Mr. Allen and made a number of remarks which you, by your own admission, know were highly inappropriate,” they wrote in a disciplinary letter published Rome News-Tribune.
The judge will undergo sensitivity training but won’t be otherwise disciplined. The JQC said it was satisfied that Durham had demonstrated contrition and would not be “drawn into this kind of exchange again.”
