# Courtroom 101: things defendants shouldn't do **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 6, 2013, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/courtroom-101-things-defendants-shouldnt-do/649453 "2013-02-06T03:49:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/courtroom-101-things-defendants-shouldnt-do/649453/141 "2013-02-12T17:02:44Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Forget mental state. How about the judge considering relevant the fact that the defendant flouts the rules of behavior and decorum in court, Doesn’t the judge act as a model for those rules? How was his “bye bye” more decorous than her “adios”? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/courtroom-101-things-defendants-shouldnt-do/649453/142 "2013-02-12T18:14:11Z")
> [@](#): > > THe other one–past and present conduct–is followed by a qualifier that renders the factor irrelevant in this case. No it doesn’t render the factor irrelevant. The judge is entitled to consider “spoiled, stupid, wasted, and insolently indifferent” as parts of the defendant’s present conduct. So is an evaluation of a need for substance abuse treatment. The defendant showed up for a bail hearing on a charge of illegal possession of drugs, and was high at the time. You want the judge to ignore that? Horseshit - the guidelines say, specifically, that it is a factor to consider in setting bail. She shows up too stoned to take the whole process seriously. So the judge, very properly, raises the stakes to get her attention - and she shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that his assessment of her character and attitude was right on the mark. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/courtroom-101-things-defendants-shouldnt-do/649453/143 "2013-02-12T18:25:22Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > No it doesn’t render the factor irrelevant. The judge is entitled to consider “spoiled, stupid, wasted, and insolently indifferent” as parts of the defendant’s present conduct. Nothing in my cite indicates such, as I just explained. > [@](#): > > The defendant showed up for a bail hearing on a charge of illegal possession of drugs, and was high at the time. You want the judge to ignore that? Horseshit - the guidelines say, specifically, that it is a factor to consider in setting bail. I want the judge to ignore that? That is, as you suggest, horseshit. I never said any such thing. I suggested that he didn’t learn anything new from “adios”–which, I’ll remind you, was entirely in-line with the decorum he’d established with his “bye-bye!”–that should have changed his judgment. Dude lost his temper. Judge fail. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/courtroom-101-things-defendants-shouldnt-do/649453/144 "2013-02-12T22:07:16Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Doesn’t the judge act as a model for those rules? How was his “bye bye” more decorous than her “adios”? That was another one of the things I noticed. He was as dismissive, _in my perception_, as the defendant. To be honest, even though I’ve never found myself in such a situation and am a law-abiding citizen, I would have been as much of a cock to him. Keeping me in jail for 30 days–or her–would not have instilled any sort of lesson and just been a waste of money. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/courtroom-101-things-defendants-shouldnt-do/649453/145 "2013-02-12T22:33:20Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > That was another one of the things I noticed. He was as dismissive, _in my perception_, as the defendant. Somehow it doesn’t seem to me to be incongruous for a judge to be dismissive of you when he’s actually dismissing you from his court room. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/courtroom-101-things-defendants-shouldnt-do/649453/146 "2013-02-13T00:28:37Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Somehow it doesn’t seem to me to be incongruous for a judge to be dismissive of you when he’s actually dismissing you from his court room. Ah, well, that would be because you don’t really know what the word “dismissive” means. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/courtroom-101-things-defendants-shouldnt-do/649453/147 "2013-02-13T02:49:09Z")
I think ethnicity may have had an influence in this. When I was in school, the Italian teachers were the strictest in discipline to me and other Italian kids. It’s like they had to prove they were not letting ethnic favoritism make them more lenient toward us. To be a minority is often to feel the in-group pressure to be a model minority to help make one’s group look good to the majority. This could explain stricter in-group policing of behavior. So when the Latina defendant said “_adiós_” in Spanish to the Latino judge, she made it publicly ethnic. Perhaps then he felt he had to make it extra emphatic that he would not let her get away with any monkey business, and swerved toward strictness. He even punctuated the harsh sentence with an ironically enunciated “_adiós_.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/courtroom-101-things-defendants-shouldnt-do/649453.md?page=7)