Feb 22, 2007 12:44 pm US/Pacific
Judge Seidlin Takes Center Stage In Smith Trial
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (CBS) ―
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Judge Larry Seidlin (File)
AP
He's known to be the no-nonsense judge sorting out the claims for Anna Nicole Smith's body, but Judge Larry Seidlin has left many wondering about him and his courtroom antics.
For the past two weeks, the international media has watched the Broward County judge's handling of the dispute over Anna Nicole's body.
"It's a piece of paper that's purported to be a will, that causes me to lose more hair than I have already lost," said Seidlin on Tuesday, as he looked at paperwork provided by Howard K. Stern's legal team.
Comments such as this one have some in the legal community questioning how the judge handled this case. Seidlin has more than 20 years of experience as a judge.
Some of the expressions he used when handling the case left him apologizing, such as when he referred to Anna Nicole's body last week as "my baby." He later apologized for that comment and has since taken a more serious stance when talking about the body.
"We want to give respect and peace to Ms. Smith's body," he said this week.
Nonetheless, this is not the first time that Seidlin's behavior has been questioned. In 2004, a poll of the bar association showed that 20 percent of lawyers didn't think he was qualified for the job, putting him at the bottom of the list of judges in the county.
Seidlin, a native New Yorker, paid for his way through law school by driving a taxi and was appointed in 1989 as a circuit judge. In 1978 he was elected as a county judge, making him one of the youngest judges to be elected, at age 28.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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