Judge Mathis

Mathis is painful to watch. He is the Jerry Springer of court shows. He is a showboat who thinks he's a comedian. It doesn't take a lot of intelligence to mock people and mocking is his trademark. The constant bragging and name dropping doesn't help either. At least Milian and Alex adhere to the law and maintain an ordered courtroom. In case after case he refuses to acknowledge information provided by litigants in favor of ridiculing their manner of speech. It is obvious that Mathis is masking his ignorance of the law with, what he seems to think, is snappy patter. I couldn't be paid enough to appear before this idiot with a serious suit.

I really use to enjoy Judge Mathis, but lately I can't hardly wait to switch the channel. I am so sick of him making everything about him and sick of hearing about how his mom raised him and his brothers. Please quit telling us stories about your life experience, let the plaintiff or defendant have their 15 minutes of fame without you butting in with a story of your own.

I'm so sick of all the crack jokes. If crack is apart of the case I understand but usually it's not. Watching him is demeaning to people in general. He tries to start stuff between the litigants. Sometime I wonder if he's on crack. He does the motion like he's stirring up the batch. Not professions at all. I'm watching this with my husband. If I continue I may end up on crack.I wish I could give a negative 5 star.

On yesterday's episode, he told a lady to "get the hell out" of his courtroom. The plaintiff was attempting to explain why she relinquished custody of her 9-month old child to the grandparents. Her reason sounded legitimate to me, but he didn't want to hear it. Even when the plaintiff explained that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, he did not show much compassion for this. At one point, he said no one feels sorry for her because she gave away her child as an infant. The child, which was born a male, was now a transgender female who, according to the mother, had lied to a married couple about his/her parents having been killed in a car crash and needing money to buy clothes for the funeral. The judge never addressed the defendant's alleged crime of obtaining money by false pretenses. His ire towards the plaintiff was extreme.

If you watch this show thinking that you will learn what life is like in an American small claims court, you will be sadly disappointed. Calling the proceedings "real" is false advertising and a true disservice to the American Court System. After watching Judge Mathis these past few weeks I've decided that I don't like this show. He does not behave in a professional manner. He appears to be bias and flippant. He tends to get into irrelevant issues merely for the sake of viewer titillation. Many times he makes totally irrelevant inquiries into the sex-lives of the participants. He makes cruel and tasteless jokes that would never occur in a real court of law. He makes sexist remarks that I find offensive but I assume are supposed to be considered "humorous". He tries to come across as "hip" and "cool" rather than serious and professional. Unfortunately, this seems to be the rule for daytime TV judges rather than the exception. The only TV judge I've seen that appears to even attempt a fair, unbiased, professional manner is Judge Joe Brown. This show loves to trumpet the fact that Judge Mathis is a "real" judge. He is (or was) a judge for Detroit. But he is nothing but a clown on this show. He plays for the camera and couldn't care less about true justice. If Judge Mathis is being held up as a success story for inner-city youth, God help us. Sad. He is a man that has sold out to the big money media.