Questions for Lawyers & Candidates
Jeff Adelman interviews Johnny Weekes, Broward Judge Candidate, Group 38
Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer Jeff Adelman welcomes his former supervisor at the Public Defender's Office, Johnny Weekes Esq. to the program. Mr. Weekes is running for Circuit Court Judge in Broward County, Group 38. Early voting is open NOW and the election date is Tuesday August 20, 2024. Jeff asks Johnny about his legal career and experience, and why he wants to service as Circuit Court Judge, Group 38. In addition to what his approach will be from the bench, he also talks about how he got into law and the importance of spending time with his family. For more information about Johnny Weekes's campaign, go to www.FriendsofWeekes.com . If you would like more information about this program, contact Jeff Adelman at jeff@lawbni.com. You can additionally watch this interview on YouTube https://shorturl.at/p0W0w
- Duration:
- 25m
- Broadcast on:
- 12 Aug 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
>> Hello and welcome to another edition of questions for lawyers and candidates. I'm your host board certified civil trial lawyer Jeff Edelman. This is a very special episode for me personally because I'm going to get an opportunity to interview my friend Johnny Weeks who I've known for my entire career and actually gave me my first trial when I was a certified legal intern at the public defender's office. Johnny has been a criminal defense attorney for over 20 years, very well known in the community and he is running for Judge in Broward County. Johnny, so glad to see you and thanks for being with me. >> Always great to see you again Jeff, those were the good old days weren't they? >> They sure were, they sure were we had some good times, no doubt. Well the election is August 20th and early voting has opened I think as of this weekend. So right now the election's going on Johnny, can you tell the audience what inspired you to run for judge? >> Well, as you know, my ex wife Maria Weeks was a judge and I really, really helped out in her campaign six years ago. I used to be a public defender 24 years ago and I did that for approximately four years. I really like giving back to public service. I think that that's really my calling. My dad was a former retired Navy captain, my mom was a teacher. So I think that that just falls in line with our family and now that I've been a criminal defense attorney for 20 years after the public defender's office, I think it's about time that I give back and there's a couple things that happened in the courthouse in reference to my particular opponent that really draw through my attention to that race and I think that better judges need to be on the bench and I think that I, my experience along with my temperament and just my utter respect for other individuals really makes me the better candidate to be in that spot. >> What are some of the things in particular that bothered you, that decided, that made you decide to jump in the race? >> Well, I think what really, the initial issue that I had with my opponent was the fact that I was asking for a defense continuance on a case that at which she had moved to a particular day that I was unavailable. She moved it to a Monday and as she moved it to Monday, she set it for trial, which, and as you remember, Jeff, back in the day, that happens all the time. I mean, this is my job and I have to be available and I understood that. But I think family comes first and I think that I was on vacation with my kids, my son is a big lacrosse player. And the vacation was about 30 days out, but it wasn't really a truly vacation. He was playing lacrosse up in South Carolina. And so I sent in a couple of motions to continue saying I'm going to be with my ex-wife who happened to practice next to this particular judge, judge Moon in the courtroom doing the same type of law. In fact, my ex-wife used to cover for her all the time. And I said, we're going to be as a family because we are very close, we're almost best friends and we have kids and I think that's really important to keep that. And we're going to be as a family up in South Carolina at this lacrosse tournament, but our fight for Jeb Blue doesn't come back until early Monday morning. So I was asking it for a continuance. Initially, I asked just for normal continuance, which would be a month or so away. That was denied, totally understood. I then sent in the paperwork again, I put my ticket in there, my ex-wife's ticket, my kids' tickets in there from Jeb Blue showed how far back they went back. And I said, can I have till one o'clock that day? Because I think I'd land at like 10.30, I'd get there as fast as possible, denied. And I've sent in another motion and I asked to have it at least at 11. Can I come in at 11? And that again was denied. Well, that's our job. And so that happens, I wasn't happy about it, but I got to walk in and do my job and fight for my client because my client's number one. So I showed up at nine o'clock in the morning with numerous other lawyers that are there because all the trials are set at a certain time. There's not a specific time that each trial gets and we waited and we waited and we waited. And then the judge is J.A., which is the secretary walks out and says, so the judge is coming in late today, she's on a plane coming back from Pittsburgh. Oh, my, OK, and she didn't take the bench until about 11.20. And I was fierce. I was absolutely furious that her time was more important than my kid's time. I was going to say all of us, you know, we are trying to do what's best for our clients, but I think that we all are allowed to have lives. At least I would like to think that we can and there has to be some, you know, at least some understanding. I guess my question is with you being a 24 year veteran of criminal defense, what do you, what understanding do you bring to the bench if you're so lucky to be selected to serve as a judge? Well, let me just go back, Jeff, because I think that me having that bad experience, I don't think that dick takes an individual. So I mean, just because I had that one bad experience, I really looked in to see if she's treating me like this, and I'm well respected in the legal community in Broward County, what is she doing to other lawyers, other people that are unrepresented in court, right? Is she following the law? And I think that's the major issue, and that's why I decided to go back to your first question. Why did I decide to put into this particular race? Because she's not treating people with respect and it doesn't make a difference what color, what race you are, what gender you are, whether or not you're represented by a lawyer or not represented by a lawyer, that courtroom is fundamentally unfair. And there's stats to prove it, the stats that are there to prove it, she runs the division of domestic violence, which is the restraining order court, and her colleague who's directly next door to her, Judge Kaplan, they're on the bench the same amount of time in reference to that six year period of time in the window. So I'm looking at stats that are almost identical that you would say, what have they done together? And she's been reversed by the fourth DCA five times as many times as Judge Kaplan has. And the fourth DCAs in their opinions have continually told her, you need to follow the law. We've told this court numerous times to follow the law. So when you see things like that, and then you get the stories from other lawyers about what she's done in court and how she's treated individuals, and they're just overwhelmed. I mean, they're just stories after stories, I could go on for hours and tell you individual stories. Then I think that there comes a time that there needs to be a change. So that's why I'm here to get to your last question of what can I bring to the table with the first thing I'm going to bring is respect into court. I'm going to put the family first, right, and I'm going to put the people that are before me first in that particular courtroom. If I'm a side of that courtroom, what's interesting about that is most of those people have never been to court before, so first time they're scared, 50 to 60 percent of them don't have lawyers, right? And it's not my job as a judge to educate them, but I don't need to be disrespectful to them. I don't need to hold their hand, but I need to make sure that they understand the process and understand that they're citizens of Broward County. And I'm there to make sure that I have pulled the law and make sure that they have a fair shake in it. And if there's any way that I can do that, I'm going to get it done. So I think that that's why I'm doing this. I think that that's what I bring to the table. My experience, I think, is of above all the better candidate. I come from a background of military service at the Virginia Military Institute in which I graduated from VMI in 1997. I then started off as an intern of the public defender's office, which what you did, I stayed there for four years, and then I opened up my own criminal defense firm. But owning your own law firm is extremely difficult. If I can do that, I can do almost anything. You have to bring in clients every day, you have to make sure that you're well known. I have not advertised in 20 years. And I think that says a lot. It says that people will repeat customers or I'm known in the community that I do the right thing and I treat them right. One of the best things I think I do in the community is I make sure that my phone is always available. So every single one of my clients, whether or not it's a quick question for a legal issue or whether or not it's a brand new client on a new attempted murder case, I pick up my phone calls. I make sure that they know that they're important to me. And that's the same thing that I would do in the courtroom that these individuals, their issue before me is very important. I take the most respect and importance for their issue at that particular time. Well, Johnny, I was thinking that stands out to me and again, I've known you a long time and with me and other certified legal interns, young attorneys, you were so patient. I saw your patients with your clients and I know that you have to have that as a criminal defense attorney. Can you explain why that's so important? Well, a lot of my clients, I mean, yes, I do some major, major crime cases, but a lot of my clients are first-time offender DUI cases or first-time offender domestic violence cases. And either they're wrongly accused or we try to work out the best particular plea for them. And I think that if you approach those individuals that have a bad attitude or not give them the time, then you're just doing them a disservice. And I think that they're calling you at their worst time in their lives. I mean, a criminal defense attorney, if you need a criminal defense attorney, that phone call or trying to find a criminal defense attorney, it's not a good feeling. I make jokes about it, but I relate it to really finding a good car mechanic, because when your car goes down immediately, right then and there, you need somebody immediately to come fix it. And sometimes you get the run around, you don't get those good attorneys. And I think that when you call my office as a criminal defense attorney, I'm there, I give you the answers, I calm you down, I tell you it's going to be okay, right? And then I make sure that I systematically fix the issue. So. Well, you know, did you always want to be a lawyer, Johnny, and we've never really talked about that. Well, no, I played really, really serious soccer growing up and I always wanted to play professional soccer. I went to VMI on a soccer scholarship and I broke my TIBF, much like Joe Thizeman did back in the late 90s. After I got my leg fixed, that kind of ended my soccer career, and it kind of opened me up to other things and a couple judges from Virginia had some good judge friends down here in Fort Lauderdale, which the honorable Frank Orlando has passed away. And now his son's a judge, Mike Orlando on the bench. And they kind of guided me and kind of pushed me in the right direction of what I should do. Going to the public defender's office, he got me a job on Al Schreiber, who then turned out to be Howard Finkelstein after Al left. And those individuals were really great guiding lights to where I should be and what road I should go down. So, and you know, I believe or not, I think I'm very good with the people and I like to talk to them. I take the time with it and I think that shows by picking a jury and I love as you say, Jeff, I love to educate and I like to show, I have a lot of interns still, even though I'm not in the public defender's office anymore, they come in this summer, I had about six or seven. I love for them to see what I do, whether or not laws are right path, but understand that like most people think the defense attorneys are just there to deal with certain types of individuals. And it's really a little bit more than that. It's sometimes in the juvenile court system, it's giving those juveniles, you know, a father figure that they don't have sometimes, giving them the right path to go down, trying to get them out and not becoming one of my clients in the adult system. So you know, those are the good cases, those are the cases that really make me smile. The cases in which I had a client call me yesterday and I saved him on a very, very, very serious first degree felony cases and he was like, "Mr. Weeks, you saved me six years ago. I would love to work the polls for you." And I said, "That would be great. This is where I need you and I appreciate that." So I have a very strong base out there. And as my dad told me, if you have 10 clients, excuse me, if you have one client that you do a really good job for, that's 10 clients that you're going to have over their lifetime. And if you just keep multiplying that, that will make you a very, very good lawyer. And I think I can bring that same thing as a judge. Very good advice. What type of community involvement do you have, Johnny? I know you've been a long time member of the Broward community. Yeah. Well, as you know, Jeff, we have twins, Marie and I, and we're 13. So like, and you have kids, and they kind of, 13 years ago, that started a whole different life. Before that, I gave back to the program that Judge Orlando started in Broward County, which is called FOSI or AMI. That was a youth program in which brought kids that were doing bad in school and kind of gave them a different outlook and different school environment. And I was on the board for there for about three or four years. And then my kids came around and then I started coaching lacrosse. And because I played high school and college lacrosse as well at VMI, I thought I could give back there. So I've been coaching lacrosse for the last, since my son was five. So probably the last eight or nine years, you know, obviously I help out with my daughter who plays big time soccer as well. But I like giving back to the community that way. I like giving back, giving my time up every other day or every day, doing the weekends on the sporting activities. I think that that really, if the kids are in sports, then they're not down at certain areas. They're not the mall. They're not going to get in trouble. And that's the way I think I've helped out the community the best. It's got to be very rewarding, especially with your athletic background, too, to be able to give some of your knowledge from your years playing soccer and other sports as well. What other things do you like to do for fun these days? Well, I mean, I love the paddleboard, I really like that. And I mean, candidly, even if I'm not coaching this summer, I was able to follow my son and my daughter. My daughters with a couple of different camps and a couple of different tournaments. My sons, we were at 10 different hotels this summer. We joke about it now from Long Island to Pennsylvania, to Hershey, Pennsylvania, which obviously had some chocolate there, you know, Maryland, Virginia, and I just love watching them play sports. That's my fun. My kids are everything to me right now. I'm going to be sad in five years when they turn 18 and whether or not they play sports or they don't play sports, but I just love watching them. I love being around them. We also love to go to roller coaster parks around the country and across the world. Last summer, we went to four different roller coaster parks in Europe. That stuff, for me, is fun. They love it. You know, my son is very excited about Halloween horn nights coming up. It's one of his favorite things to do. I think there's a countdown on his phone. I love it too. It scares me, but I love it too. That's just hanging out with his family really brings out the fun in me. That's my fun. Yeah. Well, it's funny, the things that you end up doing that maybe you wouldn't do otherwise perhaps be some of your favorite things just because you're getting to experience it with your kid. Absolutely. I feel like my son just turned 18, so that was that hit me a little bit there. Let me ask you this just a little bit, a little bit of law. Your views on voir dire and, you know, time for jury selection, you know, a lot of my colleagues are always concerned about being cut off for voir dire and not getting enough time. What are your feelings on that? He came in with you, I feel you're paying there because I think what I'm picking some serious, serious murder cases, first degree kidnapping cases and things like that. I think each lawyer, the state attorney's office, which is obviously the state of Florida and a defense attorney should be given as much time as they possibly need. Now, a judge is supposed to be, as they say, calling balls and strikes, the referee in the courtroom. If they're asking the same question over and over again, then obviously we need to move on. But I think that there's, when you're picking certain individuals that lawyers know nothing about in the void-air process and you're doing that without the ability to look into them like back in the day and maybe look up where they're from and their social media and things like that. There's 60 jurors within five minutes before the jury panel starts. I think you should have the opportunity to ask them as many questions as possible as long as it takes to make sure that you are protecting your client's interests just as well as the state attorney's office is protecting the state of Florida and just as well as the plaintiffs or the defense is representing them in civil cases. So I think that it's a disservice if you don't give them the time. Appreciate that. Can you tell me some of the endorsements you've received for your campaign? Believe it or not, I've been endorsed by a lot of people. I did not think that because I'm running against a sitting judge that I would get so many endorsements. I've been endorsed by the FOP, the PBA, Ayupa and the firefighters. I mean, those are four massive endorsements coming from a defense attorney's point of view and which I every day argue with some police officers on the stand. That says a lot. That says that they respect me and that like, I don't pull any tricks and I go by the book and I follow the law and I think that that's a real sentiment to my service as a lawyer that I can the other side that I fight every day in court is saying support this candidate. That's high praise right there. I mean, that's quite a compliment to say the least and how many cases have you tried, Johnny? See, it's interesting because a lot of lawyers at these forums say I've tried over 100 cases. Well, I've well passed that. I've probably tried over 100 cases when I was at the PD's office just in those four years and obviously I've been doing this 24 years. I don't even want to put a number to it but I mean, it would be well over probably three or four hundred. I mean, if you add in all my juvenile cases in front of judges alone without juries, if you add in all my misdemeanor cases without juries, it's a lot, it's a lot but it's been every single one of them. I can look back and it's just, it's been a wonderful experience. I mean, there's some heartbreaks to a lot of them. I always look back on the cases that I lost. I remember those individuals names probably a lot better than the ones I won but that being said, you know, I never stopped fighting for them and I make sure that even if it goes all the way to the Fort DCA, that I make sure that if I really, really believe that some injustice was done, that I'm going to make sure that I try to fix it. Johnny, I've really enjoyed talking with you. We could probably do this for a little bit longer but it's like so much the audience will listen to me. So not you. Is there anything else that you would like to tell voters as they go to the polls and why they should consider you to be the next judge for 38? Well, I am running for group 38. I would indicate to the voters that as of right now, the voter count is very, very low. As on Friday, excuse me, Saturday and Sunday this past weekend, when I was helping run Maria's campaign, it was 25,000 people each day. So far on Saturday, there was 2,700 voters and on Sunday 2,100 voters. That's a grand total of less than 5,000 for two days today because obviously school starts today and probably until Friday or Saturday, those numbers are going to be lower. So it's for Broward County that has close to over a million people that live here, for having only 2,000 people vote a day, that doesn't save a lot. And your races, your local races, your judges, your state house representatives, your clerk of court, those are more important sometimes than the big races and a lot of people just don't remember that. I mean, these races affect if you ever go to court. These races affect whether or not you like the clerk. These races affect whether or not you're paying your taxes. And those affect the individuals in Broward County. And I know we have a big race coming in November, but let's try to see if we can try to make change now for our own county and I think that that's important. Absolutely. I tell people that all the time, you know, there's always the national races, but the stuff that affects you on an everyday basis, local races, judges, and don't skip those races. They're really, really important. Well, if anybody would like to get more information about Johnny Weeks and his campaign, where can they go? Well, they can get a week's of friends of Weeks.com. They can look on my Instagram page, which is all in a week's work, all A.L. underscore in underscore a underscore Weeks, W-E-E-K-E-S. And you can always call me. My cell phone is available for anyone, 954-652-9711. Give me a call. I pick up all my calls just like I indicated earlier. My clients call me every day. You can have my number as well, call me if you have any questions at all. Well, I appreciate that. For those who are listening and don't have a visual, the website is friendsofweeks, W-E-E-K-E-S.com. Want to make sure we get it right so people aren't searching under the wrong spelling. Johnny, it was absolutely a pleasure speaking with you as it always is. Really voting is open right now, Election Day is August 20th. I encourage you to get out there and vote and support my friend, Johnny Weeks, for judge of the 38th Division. Good seeing you, Johnny. Always a pleasure. Thank you very much, chef. Have a great day. You too. You