Judges suspended after brawl in White Castle parking lot

The judges’ plan, if there ever was one, was to enjoy a couple of drinks with their colleagues the night before a judicial conference in Indianapolis.

But by 3 the next morning, three Indiana circuit court judges, by way of a failed attempt to enter a strip club, were brawling with two strangers outside a White Castle in a drunken melee that ended with two of the judges shot and in critical condition in a hospital.

In the latest repercussion from that night, the judges, Andrew Adams, Bradley B. Jacobs and Sabrina

R. Bell, were this week suspended from the bench by the Indiana Supreme Court for having “gravely undermined public trust in the dignity and decency of Indiana’s judiciary.”

According to police reports and the opinion issued by the Supreme Court, the drinking began early in the evening of April 30 for Jacobs, who had a scotch in the hotel lobby after checking into his room for the conference. At 7 p.m., Bell kicked things off with a couple of Seagram’s Escapes.

Sometime after 10 p.m., Adams started drinking beers at an Irish pub.

Around 12:30 a.m., all three were drinking with a court magistrate at another bar, throwing darts and playing cornhole.

About 3 a.m. they headed for the strip club, which had just closed for the night. The four officers of the court then walked to a nearby White Castle. The magistrate went inside while the three judges waited in the parking lot.

At that time, two men, Alfredo Vazquez and Brandon Kaiser, drove by in a blue SUV and “shouted something out the window,” according to the Supreme Court opinion. With no gavel to register her displeasure, Bell extended her middle finger instead.

The two men objected, and after they parked their vehicle in the White Castle parking lot, a “heated verbal altercation ensued” — with all parties yelling, using profanity and making “dismissive, mocking, or insolent gestures.”

The dispute quickly escalated into a brawl — at one point Adams kicked Kaiser in the back — but it appeared to have ended when Jacobs had Kaiser pinned down, with his fist raised to strike.

“This is over,” Jacobs said, according to the opinion. “Tell me this is over.”

If only it was: Kaiser pulled out a firearm, shooting Adams once and Jacobs twice, according to the police.

Adams needed two emergency operations, including to repair damage to his colon. Jacobs, who was shot twice in the chest, had two operations during a 14-day hospitalization.

Medical workers also recorded the men’s blood alcohol levels: 0.13 for Jacobs, and 0.157 for Adams. (The legal limit for drivers in Indiana is 0.08.) The report says Bell did not have her blood alcohol level tested, though she later said she had no memory of what would seem to have been a memorable encounter.