There is a reason Florida has its own tag on FARK

Ah Florida, land of orange blossoms, beaches, golf courses built on gator-filled swamps and the early bird buffet special. Home to Disneyland, retirement paradises and more crazy per capita than any other state in the union except maybe Utah. I'm not sure if it's too much time in the sun or all the prescription drugs all those retirees are flushing into the water table, but Florida seems to produce a lot of screwy stories.
Even given all that, it is hard to know just where to begin to describe the colossal amounts of fail, stupid, sexism and sheer wrongheadedness in this:

Sentence for domestic abuse: Jail or dinner and a date

A romantic night on the town with his wife rather than a night in jail was the sentence for a Florida man arrested after a marital fight over a birthday.
After careful questioning of Sonia Bray, Broward County bond court Judge John Hurley told the lawyer for her husband Joseph:
“He’s going to be out of jail by 3 o’clock today, he’s going to stop by somewhere and get some flowers and a card.”
By now, Joseph Bray and his counsel are grinning in a video broadcast by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper.
“He’ll pick up his wife, get dressed, take her to Red Lobster and then go bowling.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Bray.
The next day, Hurley ordered, the Brays were to sign up for marriage counselling.
The judge explained the leniency of his creative ruling after asking Sonia Bray repeatedly if she felt threatened by her husband or had been injured. Was money or alcohol the root of the problem?
“No,” the tearful woman told the court. It was just “a lack of communication between both of us.”
Hurley pried out of Sonia Bray that her husband had neglected to wish her happy birthday the day before, or even talk to her. They argued and he pushed her onto a couch, grabbed her throat and raised his fist, but never hit her, she said.
More careful questioning got her to admit she liked bowling and Red Lobster for a night out. Hurley threw in the flowers himself.
“Flowers, birthday card, Red Lobster, bowling,” Hurley ticked off for an abashed looking Joseph Bray. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

Needless to say, county court judges are elected in Florida, though at least they need to have a law degree and pass the Florida Bar exam. Sometimes democracy  is not the best system.
How long before this idiot is on TV as a replacement for Judge Judy? (Big surprise on the link: His favorite book is Atlas Shrugged). Whoops, he is on TV, of a sort.

My parents just got a place down there, so this is worrying.

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