Please remember, even if it's only traffic court, you should at least appear to be taking things seriously. The Queensland Times reported recently that a 27-year-old woman irked a local magistrate with her response to his questions about her driving offense. Asked…
I'm tempted to suggest that "does anyone here want to punch me?" might be a good question to ask during voir dire, but that wouldn't do any good if the punching impulse is caused by your actions during trial. That's…
There are occasionally times when laughing out loud in court is okay, but they are all too rare. Importantly, the odds that it is okay to do this go way down if you are the only one laughing. A station…
First and most importantly, when covering your face with notes you have taken in court, the side you have written on should face toward you: Second, Lindsay has excellent handwriting, the downside of which is that your notes may be legible from…
Last week, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick got his probation upgraded to jail time after a judge found he had been hiding assets to avoid paying restitution. Kilpatrick was supposed to be paying back $1 million of the $8.4 million…
A Florida appellate court has ruled that a judge went too far when he held Michelle McRoy in contempt after her cell phone rang in court. In the 2009 incident, Judge Anthony Johnson not only found McRoy in contempt, he…
Paul Christiansen, who caused a mistrial in March by doing his own research on the defendant and disclosing it to other jurors, has been fined $1,200 by a court in Newbury, New Hampshire. Jurors, of course, are instructed not to do…
"He has put a lot of this foolish behavior behind him," said Joe Francis's lawyer in 2007, but guess what? He had plenty left. Back then, Mr. Francis, who some of you may know as the purveyor of "Girls Gone Wild" videos,…
Pennsylvania lawyer H. Beatty Chadwick either could not or really did not want to hand over the $2.5 million his ex-wife was awarded after their divorce, and he was prepared to go to jail for contempt rather than do so….
A woman who sent two text messages from a Utah courtroom got 30 days in jail for contempt of court, sources reported recently. While pretty much every court prohibits the use of cellphones while court is in session, 15 days per…