Orange County Judge Martha Adams was publicly reprimanded by the Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday for making rude comments towards local prosecutors.
The reprimand comes after the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission in February found that Adams had violated the state’s judicial conduct code while presiding over Orange County criminal cases. The commission said Adams’ exhibited “biased, impatient, undignified and discourteous behavior” towards members of the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office.
Adams called one prosecutor an “ass” and she said would start being a “bitch” to the state attorney’s office in her rulings, the commission found. Judicial records do not say when the incidents took place, but she was served with a notice of investigation in October 2024.
Adams appeared at the Supreme Court in Tallahassee when Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz delivered the reprimand Wednesday morning.
“You engaged in behavior that our judiciary cannot and will not tolerate,” Muñiz said. “Behavior and expressions that show bias against any party are deeply damaging to the integrity of the courts and to public confidence in the fair and impartial administration of justice,” he said.
“And no judicial duty is more fundamental than our obligation to treat every litigant with civility and respect, even under challenging circumstances,” he said.
After the proceeding, Adams’ attorney, Thomas Sommerville, said the judge had no comment.
But she admitted to the commission’s findings and accepted its recommended discipline, according to judicial records. Adams has served on the Orange County bench since 2007 and has no prior discipline problems nor has she faced similar complaints before, the records said.
Adams was frustrated by what she viewed as administrative and procedural problems in the state attorney’s office, the records show, when she called an assistant state attorney a name in court and told a group of prosecutors that if their supervisor was going to make her life “a shambles” she would do the same to him. She also suggested she would go against the state attorney’s office in her rulings, the records show.
At the commission’s behest, Adams sent letters of apology to the individuals affected by her behavior and requested and received a transfer out of the county’s criminal division. Her profile on the Florida Ninth Judicial Circuit Court website says she is currently serving on the county civil division.
In a May ruling agreeing to the reprimand, the supreme court said Adams’ behavior could have warranted harsher punishment, but it agreed with the commission’s findings that her expressions of regret, attempts to apologize and otherwise spotless record allowed leniency.
“We accept the Commission’s determination that, given this mitigation, discipline short of a suspension is sufficient,” the court said in the ruling.
