JUDGE FROM THE BRONX

Judge Larry Seidlin.....

I have been watching Court TV live for hours these past three days, on the case of Anna Nicole Smith and who should be awarded custody of her body. I have definately come to the conclusion that Judge Larry Seidlin is a very caring and passionate Judge.

There were times when he had trouble speaking through the saddness of the situation and through the tears he shed for everyone in his court room.

He truly is a Judge with kindness and love in his heart.

"I want them to be together,'' Judge Larry Seidlin said in the Florida courtroom.

In his unexpected ruling, Seidlin gave custody of the body to a lawyer he appointed as a guardian for Smith's five-year-old daughter, rather than to Smith's estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, or her longtime companion, Howard K Stern.

"I have suffered for this, I have struggled with this, I have shed tears for your little girl,'' Seidlin told Arthur, whom he called "Mama"

Emerging from the courtroom, lawyers for the rival parties said they had agreed to bury Smith at a private ceremony in the Bahamas, even though her mother had wanted to put her to rest in her native Texas.

"It's a grieving process. All of us are suffering from it,'' said Seidlin, a former taxi driver from the Bronx, whose emotional courtroom performance and oddball comments raised some eyebrows.

"We all cried for her,'' he said in reference to meetings he held in his chambers with the rival parties.