How Not to Behave at Your Sentencing

This video come by way of Syracuse.com; at the link you can read an excellent "print" report.

Generally speaking the sort of conduct at your sentencing shown in the video will not advantage you in anyway in your path through the justice system.  Conduct like this is, also, not likely to improve the conditions or your incarceration or put you on a fast path to parole or alternative sentencing. 

What an asshole.

Contempt of Court

The Oregonian's fabulous court's writer, Aimee Green,delivers again with her report on the Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge who slammed a local defendant on multiple counts of contempt of court and homicidal high-risk driving.  This is Aimee Green's story:

"Up until the moment the judge sentenced him, 25-year-old William Kinney III insisted he was above the law. That's why he was carrying cocaine and driving in 2007 even though his license had been revoked as a teenager after crashing into another car. The impact killed a man and severely injured the man's wife.  That's why Kinney skipped out on court date after court date, forcing authorities to issue a warrant for his arrest in 2008 and 2009.   And that's why he was driving again in May 2010, when police finally found and arrested him. He was held in jail until his trial last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

Judge Leslie Roberts showed Kinney that he wasn't above the law when she sentenced him Friday to 5 1/2 years in prison.   The judge also took the highly unusual measure of finding Kinney in contempt of court 12 times, for loudly and repeatedly interrupting and talking over her and the attorneys. The judge sentenced Kinney to an additional four months in prison and ordered him to pay a $3,000 fine.

Kinney dug a deep hole for himself, one that wouldn't have been so deep if he had accepted a pretrial plea offer from the prosecutor: plead guilty in exchange for about a year in prison.   Jurors deliberated for about 20 minutes before finding Kinney guilty of two counts of driving with a revoked license and possessing a substantial quantity of cocaine.

When Kinney got a chance to speak at his sentencing hearing, he reiterated the point he had made many times before. He is a sovereign individual, an 'indigenous' man, a 'remnant of the divine people. I'm an endangered species to this continent,'  he said.  He said that he answers only to God and not to the laws of Oregon

Prosecutor Ryan Lufkin used Kinney's words to urge the judge to send him to prison for 5 1/2 years, as long as possible under Oregon sentencing guidelines, to protect the public from him. Lufkin noted that Kinney's disrespect for the law had resulted in death before.   In 2002, when Kinney was a 17-year-old student at Cleveland High School, he was driving a carload of his friends back from lunch when he crashed into a car just blocks from school. Kinney was speeding and driving without a valid license.

Ann Goetz, 74, was seriously injured and her husband, Fred Goetz, 83, died. Kinney pleaded guilty to the juvenile equivalent of hit-and-run driving, third-degree assault and criminally negligent homicide, and was sentenced to six years of incarceration. His license was revoked for life, although Oregon law allows him to ask to get it back after 10 years.   'He repeatedly keeps driving,' Lufkin said. 'We are going to see Mr. Kinney again. He is not going to obey the law.'

Earlier this year, a judge ordered a psychological review of Kinney, and he was allowed to proceed to trial.

Kinney's attorney, James Britt, asked the judge not to give Kinney the maximum as punishment for Kinney's unpopular beliefs and lack of 'sophistication. Mr. Kinney suffers from an inability ... to understand a complicated system,' Britt said, adding that 2 1/2 years would be a fitting sentence.  

The judge didn't take long to decide that Kinney should spend more than double that in prison. By continuing to drive, Roberts said, 'you're playing Russian roulette with everyone's lives.'

Kinney will be eligible for 20 percent off his prison sentence. That is, if he follows the prison's rules."

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If you needed an example of mental illness in the petri dish of ego, this is it.  You could probably add the bacteria of immaturity and race to have a complete picture of what's going on here.   The comedian Chris Rock has instructive video dealing with "how not to get your ass kicked by the police," which would have been helpful to Mr. Kinney, had he viewed it before he opened his mouth in court.

I do not understand disrespect in court--from anyone. 

Low Riding Pants, That's a Jailin'

The most controversial posts on Bad Lawyer last year related to my defense of Judge who imposed rules relating to court room attire.  Here we have a case of a New Orleans area woman who got herserlf jailed for showing her ass in a courtroom to a judge. She had a prior history of criminal history in the same courtroom. Good move on the ass-bearing.  This is from NOLA.com:

A state judge in Jefferson Parish sentenced a Kenner woman to 10 days in jail Thursday because she was in court with low-riding pants that revealed her underwear and, according to one witness, a bit more.  Kimberly Senette, 23, remained in the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center Friday afternoon, after Judge Steve Windhorst of the 24th Judicial District held her in direct contempt of court Thursday morning for the apparent inappropriate appearance he said showed disrespect for the court. Senette could not be reached for comment, and her family declined to speak with a reporter Thursday and Friday.

Senette went to court Thursday to urge her brother, Lawrence Senette, 18, of Westwego, to accept a plea deal in connection with charges of armed robbery and battery on a correctional officer. She was dressed in a dark T-shirt adorned with a printed design, black Nike tennis shoes and knee-length plaid shorts. While waiting for her brother's case to be called, Senette briefly left the courtroom, according to a witness who asked to not be identified. Her panties and the top of her buttocks were showing above her shorts, the witness said.

When she returned to court, Windhorst questioned her low-riding pants, witnesses said. She said she had to remove her belt when going through the security checkpoint at the parish government complex entrance.

She ended up being handcuffed and seated in the jury box a row behind her brother, crying with her family members after he eventually accepted a 12-year prison sentence in exchange for his pleading guilty to carjacking and simple battery charges.

By the time she was escorted out of court by a deputy, her shorts hung normally from her hips with a fuchsia belt affixed to the earthy colored pants. Her family members left the courtroom furious. Some family returned to the courthouse Friday morning in hopes of gaining her release.

State lawmakers have attempted to criminalize low-riding pants, most recently in this year's regular session when state Rep. Rickey Hardy, D-Lafayette, filed an ill-fated bill that would have outlawed clothing 'which intentionally exposes undergarments or the cleft of the buttocks.'

While the fashion style remains legal, judges and bailiffs routinely remind people of appropriate dress for court. The state's code of criminal procedure gives judges authority to hold people in direct contempt when they show 'disorderly behavior' toward judicial officials 'tending to interrupt or interfere with the business of the court or to impair its dignity or respect for its authority.'
'It certainly is not unheard of for a judge to hold a person in contempt for disruptive or disorderly dress in court,' said Dane Ciolino, a Loyola University law professor. It wasn't Senette's first time before Windhorst. She pleaded guilty in his court four years ago to a theft charge and received two years of probation, records show.
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Really, I don't get this!  You are in court.  This is one of the sacred places in our civilization, conduct yourself with some sense of the seriousness and dignity o fthe institution.  That the lawyers and judges do not always live up to this ideal, well that's a problem.  But you are in charge of you, dress appropriately.

#@!$ You Judge!--That'll Get You Jail

The Miami Herald affiliate, the Sun-Sentinel is reporting the story of the Fort Lauderdale man who's foul mouth landed a 179 day jail sentence.  As I have said on many occasions, do not represent yourself in court, and one more thing when given an opportunity to speak to the Judge do not do what Dwayne "Wiggy" Mitchell did.  This is from Tonya Alanez's report:

"A profanity-laced courtroom outburst has earned a Fort Lauderdale man 179 days in jail.   Dwayne 'Wiggy' Mitchell, 45, cursed and made vulgar references to his genitals and Broward County Judge Lee Jay Seidman while in court on a misdemeanor resisting-arrest charge.  When Seidman asked Mitchell why he should not be held in contempt of court and sentenced to jail for the outburst, Mitchell repeated his crude remarks, according to court documents.

`These rude, insulting and obscene remarks were intentionally spoken, directed at this court and disrupted proceedings,'' Seidman wrote in his final judgment of direct criminal contempt. `These remarks were uttered for the purpose of embarrassing and degrading the court and to impugn the dignity and authority of this court.'

When Mitchell came to court May 24, the prosecutor made a plea offer of 60 days in jail for the resisting-arrest charge, said Mitchell's attorney, assistant public defender Alexander Hunt.But after hearing a recitation of Mitchell's lengthy criminal record, Seidman indicated that he would be inclined to impose a 364-day jail sentence, Hunt said.

Then came the outburst."
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Don't do this sort of thing, harangues never persuade the court to do something positive for you.  Never.  That is unless you consider going directly to jail, something positive.