This was no soft serve.
Judge Judy Sheindlin ripped progressive district attorneys for ruining major cities like New York — saying they’re better suited for other jobs, like selling ice cream.
“When you have district attorneys who are charged, whose job it is to do justice, but to keep the community safe … When you have elected district attorneys who don’t know what their job is, they should go find another job,” the celebrity judge told Fox News Digital.
“Fill ice cream cones someplace. But don’t ruin cities,” she said.
“And what’s happened around New York City, Portland, San Francisco, you had district attorneys who didn’t know what their job was. And the cities are ruined, people are leaving.”
Judge Judy blamed such soft-on-crime policies for the decline allowing a string of recent daylight attacks on strangers, most famously 66-year-old actor Steve Buscemi, who was slugged in the face on May 8.
“Oh I know how we got here,” the veteran reality TV star said. “We got here because a small group of people who have very loud voices created a scenario where bad people got rewarded. And the victim got punished by the system.”
She suggested prosecutors were too sympathetic to suspects and willing to ignore their crimes.
“You know there is always a reason for criminal behavior — didn’t have a good upbringing, didn’t have two parents in the house, didn’t have one parent in the house,” she said.
“There’s always a reason. You’re mentally ill. That’s a reason. You took drugs, that’s a reason. You took alcohol, your brain is fried… Whatever it is.”
But “there is never an excuse for bad behavior,” she stressed.
“And when society started to make excuses for bad behavior, and react to criminality based upon the excuses, it fell apart.”
She also blasted New York’s 2019 decision to raise the minimum age a suspect can be tried as an adult to 18 as “ridiculous”.
“You’re just as dead as somebody 18 kills you, or 17,” she said.
“You’re just as dead. And if you’re 17 years old and kill somebody, you don’t belong with kids who are 12, in a juvenile facility… But a very small group of people pushed through in New York State, for instance, raising the level of criminal responsibility.”
The NYPD has been struggling to halt the post-pandemic wave of violence — with overall major crime staying steady over last year, but still up more than 34% when compared to 2018, new police data shows.
The TV judge says she “has to” hold out hope for society, while wearily pointing out how she has been making similar warnings for decades.
She recalled a 1993 interview in which she was asked how she saw things changing in the next 10 years.
“I said, ‘worse’ … A lot worse. And that’s what happened,” she said.
“I think we better get smarter before we get lost … Permanently lost.”
