Smackdown: - YouTube
Flip-off: - YouTube
From looking at footage of the flip-off, I don’t think that the kid was making a statement. He was trying to get away with something on live TV.
I haven’t been following this trial at all and know very little about the case but that smackdown was hilarious.
It was indeed hilarious, and the judge does a really thorough job of establishing the necessary elements for criminal contempt.
I’ve heard people elsewhere decry the lengthy interrogation that the judge gave him, asking why he had to humiliate the dumbass instead of just sentencing him. But the point of all that is that criminal contempt has to be proven like any other crime. (Civil contempt is another matter.)
The questions about his finances and living arrangements were not for the purpose of humiliation either, but to determine if Bartlett qualified for a public defender for his appeal.
Did anybody see Judge Perry deliver a smack down to both Ashton and Baez today? He told them both that if either did so much as a scoff while the other was speaking they would be removed instantly from the case and possibly held in contempt.
3:1 odds he’ll be offered a TV Judge program within 90 days of this trial.
I wonder what would have happened if he had then flipped the judge the bird…
I would pay good money to see that.
It’s not like my heart’s bleeding for him and it would never have occurred to me to flip off someone in a courtroom (to be honest, I have no interest in being in one unless I were somehow involved) but hell, I flip people of for the crime of cutting in front of me in the bagel line. I flip people off for taking the last cup of coffee and not making a new pot. I flip myself off if I notice I spilled mustard on my new shirt. I can’t imagine thinking anything deeper than “heh heh” at someone flipping someone off and if an attorney getting flipped the bird influences you as a juror, I respectfully submit you lack the necessary cognitive power to be on a jury in the first place. So now this guy is spending a week in jail, he’s going to miss out on his job which may have serious consequences in terms of continued employment, it will definitely affect him should he look for other jobs and he’s plastered all over the internet. And I suspect the lesson he’s learned is less along the “shouldn’t flip people off” lines and more along the “judges and the law are humorless assholes who should be avoided if it can be helped” Good job, all around guys.
Or maybe he learned that he shouldn’t do anything to remotely influence the jury or disrupt the courtroom of a first degree murder case? I’m pretty sure the judge doesn’t give a fuck if he flips off someone that cuts him off in traffic.
That’s nice and all, but none of those instances are taking place in the courtroom where a trial for felony murder is in session. especially where the defendant may be facing the death penalty.
I less-than-respectfully submit that if your need for “lulz heh heh” can’t be set aside during the aforementioned trial- especially when specifically told not to do so and with signs posted repeating that- then you really deserve this kind of smackdown to get it pounded into your head that you are not some special little snowflake.
Oh, and the whole “judges and the law are humorless assholes who should be avoided if it can be helped” is the whole point. This is a murder trial. “Humor” doesn’t even enter into the picture.
Thank you!
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That judge needs a beatdown.
Wow, we weren’t watching the same trial. I thought the judge was outstanding. God forbid I ever need to set foot in a US courtroom for any reason, but if I do, I would gladly have that judget precide over the proceedings.