They included disparaging remarks about drug treatment programs and the Baltimore City criminal justice system, a joke that the county's Circuit Court judges spend their afternoons sipping cocktails rather than working, and profanity not normally heard from the bench.
Lamdin admitted violating the canons of the judicial code of conduct, but he also explained that his courtroom commentary was often intended to ease tense moments with humor or to get through to the types of people he represented as a criminal defense attorney in language they could understand.
That same approach - although not with the same vocabulary - was on display yesterday.
"He's funny," said Joseph W. Puppe, a 45-year-old bricklayer who was in court for a traffic citation. "His retorts and replies to people, they're funny. And I thought he was pretty fair."
Lamdin asked Shapiro's client - a man who had a .22-caliber handgun tucked in his pocket and a blood-alcohol level that was more than twice the legal limit when police pulled him over - what he had learned from his mistakes. Then the judge offered some advice of his own.
"You can't mask the issues in your life with alcohol," he told the man, whose lawyer suggested that bartenders had poured stiffer drinks than usual for the man because they knew him. "It sounds like others were trying to lighten the load by getting you loaded, unfortunately."
To the young man charged with marijuana possession - whom Lamdin called "son" - the judge said, "I believe in giving people second chances. ... I don't want to send you to jail, but if you don't respect me, that's how I'll repay the favor. Make no mistake about that."
To a man who was contemplating pleading guilty to driving without a license, the judge said, "I don't punish people for telling the truth. What I don't tolerate is people who try to blow smoke up my robe."
Lamdin also handled the case of a Russian man who was prepared to plead guilty to a traffic offense. But as the judge began running through the rights that every defendant entering a guilty plea must waive, it became apparent that the man was struggling to understand the legal terminology in English.
Asked whether he understood that he had the right to be represented by an attorney and that the judge could send him to jail, the man said, "If I guilty, I go to jail."
