I'm a judge. Here's why the viral video of a teenage girl's humiliation makes me furious.

I’ve been told that ego is synonymous with “leaving God behind.” The video of a Detroit judge’s dehumanizing treatment of a teenage girl who dozed off in his courtroom during a school visit to the courthouse is confirmation of this truth.

Judge Kenneth King, who presides over the criminal division of Michigan’s 36th District Court, yelled at a 15-year-old student who was visiting his courtroom with a nonprofit group, then sent her to the courthouse jail cell, where she was forced to strip naked, put on a jail jumpsuit and sit alone. As if that wasn’t already excessively punitive, King continued to humiliate the teenager by ordering her back into the courtroom while she was in handcuffs. He had her plead for leniency. He asked his peers, some of whom were unable to hold back their laughter, to vote on her fate.

King, who has since been removed from his role and ordered to undergo mandatory training, defended his actions when it was revealed what he did to the girl. “It’s not something that normally happens,” he told Detroit’s WXYZ television station. “But I felt compelled to do it because I didn’t like the kid’s attitude.” Calling his actions “my own version of Scared Straight,” he told the television station: “I haven’t been disrespected like that in a very long time.”

But the most blatant disrespect that was demonstrated that day came from the judge himself. He disrespected not only the teenager before him, but the bench. In fact, seeing what the judge did to this young person – which would have been against the rules even if she had been an accused person, and not just a student on a summer school trip – infuriated me as a member of the legal profession, a retired lawyer, a mother and a human being.

Last week, the teen's family filed a lawsuit against King, accusing him of violating their civil rights. “This is a very disturbing case,” one of the family's attorneys said. “We had a member of our court denigrate, humiliate, intimidate and essentially incarcerate a 15-year-old girl.”

That lawyer is right. It is troubling. The courtroom visit should have been an opportunity to inspire in this young black woman the desire to become, say, a Supreme Court justice, like Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Instead, because of King, she had a devastating encounter with a judge who unfairly flaunted his authority, which will only deepen her, and the public’s, distrust of our justice system.

True authority is effortless. People who understand their authority know that they do not need to speak harshly to command respect. Authority is conveyed through professionalism and fairness. Unfortunately, in this case, the judge was more interested in asserting his dominance over this young person than in fostering an environment of learning, understanding, and respect in his courtroom.

The judge couldn't have looked good by making her look like an inmate because she fell asleep. But he looked even worse after the details of her situation were revealed.

Latoreya Till, the teen's mother, told NBC News that they did not have a permanent place to live and arrived late at the home where they were staying the night before the teen's school trip. In an interview with WXYZ-TV, she said: “The fact that he talked about 'Go home and get into bed,' how do you know my baby has a place to live? How do you know my baby has a bed, her own bed that she could sleep in? She doesn't have one right now, so she was tired.”

People often fall asleep in court because of medication, a medical condition, the temperature in the courtroom, or because they don't understand the proceedings. Her ego made her believe that she had fallen asleep to disrespect him.

I know that being a judge is difficult. I served for nearly 10 years in the Newark Municipal Court in New Jersey. When I took my oath of office, I pledged to treat every person who entered my courtroom with dignity, respect, and fairness. This commitment is fundamental to the goal of the judicial system, which is to ensure justice for all.

This belief is based on a concept known as procedural justice or procedural fairness. Simply put, when people feel they are treated with dignity, respect, and fairness by the justice system, the results are overwhelmingly positive. Respect for court decisions increases. The public has more trust in the justice system. And crime decreases.

The principles of procedural justice require that judges, lawyers, and others in the justice system ensure that people have a voice, understand the process, and are treated with neutrality and respect. This principle is as important as whether a person wins or loses in court. In other words, when a person feels that they have been treated fairly, they are generally willing to accept the outcome of the case, even if it is unfavorable to them.

What King did goes against every principle of procedural justice. Fortunately, few judges behave this way. Nevertheless, it should serve as a stark reminder to those in authority of the dangers of ego. King had an obligation to remember that he wore a robe, not a crown.

The judge’s behavior harmed not just one student, but everyone in the courtroom that day by negatively shaping their perceptions (or confirming their existing negative beliefs) of the justice system. Court observers should come away with a greater respect for the judicial process. Clearly, those in King’s courtroom that day did not.

The authority of a judge is not a weapon to be used against the weak. The authority of a judge must be used to protect, promote and embody the principles of procedural justice. As the teenager’s mother put it, he was “supposed to show love and sympathy and enforce the law, but he did none of that.”

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com