Alabama Judge Loses Job After Saying George Floyd ‘Got What He Deserved’

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The top elections official in an Alabama county who allegedly said George Floyd “got what he deserved” was removed from his job by a court order last week after committing a litany of ethics violations. 

Randy Jinks, the Talladega County probate judge, was removed from his position Friday. Jinks’ removal was a unanimous 9-0 decision by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary, which handles complaints against judicial officials, after they found that he violated five ethics rules, including “failing to uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary.” In addition to losing his position, Jinks was ordered to pay for the costs of the proceeding. 

A 78-page complaint filed against Jinks in March contained accounts from former county employees, including that when Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis last year, Jinks allegedly referred to Floyd as “just another thug” and said, “I don't see anything wrong with the police killing him.” 

While talking about Black people, Jinks also mouthed the N-word to a former deputy clerk, and he repeatedly accused the office’s only Black employee of marching in Black Lives Matter protests and implied he would lose his job if he did. When the same employee bought a new car, Jinks told him, according to the order: “I’m the judge and I can’t even afford a Mercedes. What you doing, selling drugs?” 

Jinks, 65, was elected in 2018 to a position that oversees the issuing of marriage licenses, adoptions, and more as well as elections. Despite being a judge, Jinks does not have a law license and did not need one to seek or hold the office. He formerly served as the chair of the local Republican Party’s executive committee, in a county that went for former President Donald Trump by more than 25 points in 2020. 

In addition to the numerous allegations of racist comments, the court found that Jinks “displayed sexually inappropriate misconduct” when he “showed a subordinate a sexually explicit video in the workplace,” according to the order. The court also found that Jinks attempted to lean on an assistant district attorney in nearby Shelby County, hoping to secure the woman’s early release from her criminal sentence so he could hire her in the Talladega County Probate office.

Jinks has denied the allegations. Amanda Hardy, Jinks’ lawyer, said Sunday that Jinks’ comments “were taken completely out of context and cast in a light calculated to besmirch the Judge’s character and further the accusatory employees' attempts to remove him from office,” in a statement to AL.com. 

“Randy Jinks has spent his entire life not being accused as being a racist,” Hardy told AL.com. “Once he entered politics and became the first Republican to hold that office, that all changed.”