Judge Lets Loose With Barrels Blazing : NRA convention: Florida jurist lives up to reputation, calling drug dealers ‘scumbags’ and rehabilitation ‘a joke.’ But she disagrees with gun group on a key issue.

Ellen Morphonios’ hard-line, often uncensored positions on law-and-order issues have earned the Florida judge a national reputation and a corner full of critics. But the “hangin’ judge,” as she is known at home, found perhaps the perfect audience for her message here Sunday--about 350 listeners at the National Rifle Assn. convention.

Drug dealers are “scumbags,” she told her audience; rehabilitation for criminals is “a myth;” sentencing guidelines are “a joke,” and plea bargaining is “an abomination.”

The gun enthusiasts could not get enough of Morphonios, who has recently been profiled on CBS television’s “60 Minutes,” in People magazine, and by other major media outlets for her tough-as-nails reputation.

“If there’s ever a seat on the California bench, would you come and straighten us out?” pleaded audience member Shirley Gooding of Long Beach. Morphonios declined the offer.

The judge’s appearance reflected an attempt by the embattled gun lobby to bring more women into the fold at a time when the NRA’s general membership has declined markedly and it has suffered an unprecedented string of legislative defeats nationwide. Women make up about 3% of the NRA’s 2.8 million members.

“It’s an image builder for us to have women see a role model like Ellen,” said Marcia Carlson, who heads the NRA’s Women’s Policies Committee.

The group has also just created a new salaried staff position to oversee women’s issues.

Morphonios, 60, a judge in Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit, has sentenced about 15 people to death, helping earn her the nicknames “the hangin’ judge” and “maximum Morphonios,” among others.

She denies an oft-told story, lore in the Florida legal community, that in sentencing a rapist to life in prison, she lifted her judicial robes and told him: “Get a look at these gams, pal, because they’re the last you’ll see for a long time.”

But truth or otherwise, the legend fits the reputation of a woman who once sentenced an armed robber to 1,698 years in prison.

So in line are most of Morphonios’ positions with those of NRA members that her listeners did not seem to mind when she said, “I really would not have a problem with registering a gun.”

Nor, the judge said in an interview, does she object to waiting periods for guns sales, such as the 15-day wait in California.

The NRA has fought strongly against both issues.

Morphonios was cheered for her staunch condemnation of other gun measures. Hitting on a central theme in virtually all NRA lobbying efforts, Morphonios said that laws banning certain types of weapons, such as the legislation on semiautomatic weapons that was passed in California and is being considered by the U.S. Senate, does nothing but endanger “law-abiding citizens.” The criminals, she insisted, will remain armed.

“Do you honestly believe (a criminal) is going to pay any attention whatsoever to your silly little gun laws?” she asked.

As bad as she believes California’s ban on semiautomatics to be, Morphonios said gun owners should abide by its provisions.

“Send your guns to a relative in Alabama,” she suggested.

Gun control measures are only one part of a broader social problem that places the rights of criminals ahead of those of law-abiding citizens, who must now live in fear of attack on them or their property, she asserted.

“Who’s the prisoner? Who’s being punished?” she asked. “While the criminal is walking around unfettered, we’re locking ourselves up. . . . I never thought I’d have to carry a .38 to take out the garbage, but if I go out late at night, I do.”