A Michigan judge shamed an elderly cancer patient for being unable to clean up his lawn because his medication made him too weak.
In a video posted to Twitter, Burhan Chowdhury, 72 could be heard struggling to breathe while explaining to 31st District Judge Alexis G. Krot that he is a cancer patient and is “very weak” so he could not do maintenance work on his yard.
“You should be ashamed of yourself. If I could give you jail time on this, I would,” Krot said in response.
She gave him a $100 fine and ordered him to clean up the yard because “that is totally inappropriate.”
Shibbir Chowdhury, 33, Burhan’s son told the judge that his father is sick and the yard has been cleaned up.
“Do you see that photo?” Krot asked. “That is shameful. Shameful. The neighbors should not have to look at that.”
Shibbir told the Washington Post that his dad was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph nodes in 2019 and he usually maintains his parents’ property. He was unable to do so for the past three months because he was out of the country. When he returned his dad told him that they had received a ticket for noxious weeds and vegetation.
“She was telling my father, a sick person, that he should go to jail. That’s ridiculous. You can’t give a 72-year-old person jail time for not cleaning an alley,” he told the Washington Post. “I was really shocked by it. I didn’t expect her to yell at us in this kind of a situation.”
Krot was appointed in 2016 by then-Michigan Republican governor Rick Snyder.
