Judge, Censured for Racist Remarks, Apologizes to Jews for Hitler Comment

Superior Court Judge Gerald Chargin, censured by the California Supreme Court for a racial slur against Mexicans, included in his public apologies one to “my fellow Americans of the Jewish faith.” Judge Chargin was criticized by the high court for telling a Mexican-American teenage youth convicted of incest with a mentally-retarded sister that he had acted “like an animal.” According to the court transcript. Judge Chargin also said that “maybe Hitler was right. The animals in our society probably ought to be destroyed.” Declaring in his statement that “there is no place in our society for Judgment of any person on the basis of his race, ethnic origin or creed,” the judge said “to my fellow Americans of the Jewish faith,” that he was repeating “an earlier statement that I never intended approval of anything Hitler did and particularly his program of genocide.”