JUDGE SAYS TOSSING WHITE LAWYERS WAS A 'MISTAKE': Black judge wanted to give private pep talk to black defendants.

An Atlanta judge who ordered white lawyers out of his courtroom so he could lecture African-American defendants called that decision a "mistake" Tuesday night, reports CNN.


"In retrospect, it was a mistake," Judge Marvin Arrington told the network. "Because my sheriff said to me, 'Judge, that message should be given to everybody' -- 'Don't violate the law, make something out of yourself, go to school, find a role model, somebody that will help you advance your life.'"

Arrington, an African-American judge in Fulton County, said he was simply tired of young black defendants in his courtroom and decided to address them one day last week -- out of the earshot of white lawyers.

"I came out and saw the defendants, and it was about 99.9 percent Afro-Americans," Arrington told CNN affiliate WSB-TV of Atlanta, "and at some point in time, I excused some lawyers -- most of them white -- and said to the young people in here, 'What in the world are you doing with your lives?'"

The judge thought his message would make a greater impact if he delivered it to a black-only audience, he said. "I didn't want them to think I was talking down to them; trying to embarrass them or insult them; be derogatory toward them, and I was just saying, 'Please get yourself together.'"