Duane Yuen

In March 2015, a top judge criticized and criticized again the justice system. After receiving a private letter allegedly from an undercover FBI employee — and an apology the year before — the US Supreme Court’s highest court issued its latest verdict on the matter, throwing out its old way of doing things. But the person who gave the employee his mission and then stood aside and avoided a scandal until 2016 has not yet apologised — although he may pay with his life for what happened.

The court heard, in the early hours of Monday, 14 March 2017, the guilty plea of Daryl Stumpf, the former New York State supreme court justice who prosecuted George Zimmerman in December 2012.

Stumpf, who had been a judge for 14 years and retired almost a year earlier, had become an outspoken critic of the way the justice system treats criminals. Then, in January, the judge was on the wrong side of a high-profile trial in which Zimmerman was accused of manslaughter and could have faced the death penalty. Zimmerman is now serving a prison sentence for the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, in which Zimmerman claimed self-defense. Stumpf said it was an “existential threat” to his job. He did not, to his mind, have the guts to take the case.

Then, in June 2016, four months after the Martin shooting, Stumpf was appointed to replace the retired Justice Jan Scaparrotti.

So it was a disaster — an existential threat to his job and an impossible-to-maintain secret mission, and Stumpf knew it.

Yet, despite everything, Stumpf sent a cease and desist letter to the reporter who asked to be interviewed about Stumpf’s case.

Then, Stumpf sent another one to the reporter who referred to his purported assignment, his “private and personal” work as a judge.

Then, on 16 March 2017, an undercover FBI employee gave Stumpf a new email address in her attempt to “settle down” his legal matters, according to Stumpf.

But Stumpf did not comply. The next day, as part of his trial, he was asked to change his plea.