{"id":124230,"date":"2025-06-26T00:02:51","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T08:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/26\/chewed-gum-under-courthouse-table-becomes-federal-case-because-of-course-it-does\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T00:02:51","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T08:02:51","slug":"chewed-gum-under-courthouse-table-becomes-federal-case-because-of-course-it-does","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/26\/chewed-gum-under-courthouse-table-becomes-federal-case-because-of-course-it-does\/","title":{"rendered":"Chewed Gum Under Courthouse Table Becomes Federal Case Because Of Course It Does"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I first skimmed this order from Judge T. Kent Wetherell II, I thought it said \u201cThings would have been considerably worse for Plaintiff had she not admitted it because the courtroom security video clearly shows her placing the GUN under the table.\u201d How could a judge respond to someone sneaking a firearm into a courtroom by threatening to make them write \u201cI will not do it again\u201d 100 times like Bart Simpson? But then I saw it was the Northern District of Florida and thought, \u201cthat tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it turns out the event behind this order wasn\u2019t a Second Amendment test but a party sticking their GUM underneath the table and leaving it for the next unsuspecting litigant. <\/p>\n

Less bazooka and more Bazooka Joe.<\/p>\n

And now the incident can live on for posterity, to be dug up to flesh out a footnote in a future student law review note: Justice Is Hungry: An Postsemantic Analysis Of The Edible Hermeneutics Of Food Narratives In America\u2019s Courtrooms.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

After the sentencing hearing, I was informed that the Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) who was sitting in the chair in which Plaintiff sat during the morning hearing got gum on her skirt when she brushed her leg against the underside of counsel\u2019s table. It was at that point that court staff determined that chewed gum had been stuck under the table.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Look, this is disgusting and contemptuous but also something that could\u2019ve been handled \u2014 forgive me \u2014 under the table. Send a letter to whoever sat there earlier and maybe assess some small fine. Not everything needs to be enshrined on PACER. Some issues can die in silent shame, like the Blackberry.<\/p>\n

\n

The gum that was not stuck to the AUSA\u2019s skirt was still stuck to and hanging down from the table after the incident. See<\/em> Doc. 51 at 3 (post-incident picture). The court custodial staff then had the unenviable task of removing the remainder of the gum from the table, which they dutifully did.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Why is there a picture on the docket? We believed you! And I don\u2019t want to downplay the hard work custodial staff bring, but the order makes it sound like they were handling vials of Sarin Gas when they probably ran a putty knife over it and then rubbed it down with Fabuloso. <\/p>\n

\n

Court staff and I inferred that the gum had to have been stuck under the table at some point during the morning hearing because there had been no hearings in that courtroom since Tuesday, and the gum was still fresh and stringy. Thus, to get to the bottom of the incident, I ordered Plaintiff to \u201cfile a notice identifying who stuck the chewed gum under the table and show cause why the Court should not impose appropriate sanctions on the person who did so.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s like Encyclopedia Brown but thankfully the judge didn\u2019t have to send that goon Sally out to break someone\u2019s legs off stage.<\/p>\n

The plaintiff in the civil matter fessed up in a written apology, promising it won\u2019t happen again. Presumably because someone turned her on to Altoids. Her lawyer vouched for her. The judge forwarded it to the affected Assistant U.S. Attorney for potential dry-cleaning restitution, and decided \u201ca simple admonishment will suffice.\u201d<\/p>\n

No kidding. It\u2019s appropriate that the judge didn\u2019t try to stack a penalty atop someone who already agreed to pay. You don\u2019t want to punish someone twice\u2026 that would be Double(Mint) Jeopardy.<\/p>\n

Even though this ends this chapter, the judge has ideas if this comes up again:<\/p>\n

\n

That said, if anything like this happens again, I will come up with sanctions that are commensurate with the schoolchild-nature of the violation\u2014maybe sitting in the courtroom under the supervision of a court security officer handwriting \u201cI will not stick my gum under a courtroom table again\u201d 100 times on notebook paper; an afternoon of helping the court custodial staff clean the courtroom and adjacent public areas; and\/or a couple hours of scraping gum off the sidewalk in front of the courthouse.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Real \u201cdisgruntled vice principal\u201d energy.<\/p>\n

Again, this is disgusting and it\u2019s entirely appropriate to admonish the party responsible \u2014 if not necessarily publicly. But this is Florida. It\u2019s hard not to feel a touch of vertigo watching the judiciary leap into action over Juicy Fruit while the legal system has a \u201cget out of murder free card\u201d if the killer can prove they were scared enough and libraries purge Heather Has Two Mommies like it\u2019s a national security threat. It\u2019s not Judge Wetherell\u2019s fault \u2014 he\u2019s just trying to keep his courtroom a step above the floor of a Greyhound \u2014 but there\u2019s something to a system that elevates the little things while bigger injustices thrive. <\/p>\n

Something to chew on. <\/p>\n

Ugh.<\/p>\n

(Check out the order on the next page\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Chewed Gum Under Courthouse Table Becomes Federal Case Because Of Course It Does<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I first skimmed this order from Judge T. Kent Wetherell II, I thought it said \u201cThings would have been considerably worse for Plaintiff had she not admitted it because the courtroom security video clearly shows her placing the GUN under the table.\u201d How could a judge respond to someone sneaking a firearm into a courtroom by threatening to make them write \u201cI will not do it again\u201d 100 times like Bart Simpson? But then I saw it was the Northern District of Florida and thought, \u201cthat tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it turns out the event behind this order wasn\u2019t a Second Amendment test but a party sticking their GUM underneath the table and leaving it for the next unsuspecting litigant. <\/p>\n

Less bazooka and more Bazooka Joe.<\/p>\n

And now the incident can live on for posterity, to be dug up to flesh out a footnote in a future student law review note: Justice Is Hungry: An Postsemantic Analysis Of The Edible Hermeneutics Of Food Narratives In America\u2019s Courtrooms.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

After the sentencing hearing, I was informed that the Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) who was sitting in the chair in which Plaintiff sat during the morning hearing got gum on her skirt when she brushed her leg against the underside of counsel\u2019s table. It was at that point that court staff determined that chewed gum had been stuck under the table.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Look, this is disgusting and contemptuous but also something that could\u2019ve been handled \u2014 forgive me \u2014 under the table. Send a letter to whoever sat there earlier and maybe assess some small fine. Not everything needs to be enshrined on PACER. Some issues can die in silent shame, like the Blackberry.<\/p>\n

\n

The gum that was not stuck to the AUSA\u2019s skirt was still stuck to and hanging down from the table after the incident. See<\/em> Doc. 51 at 3 (post-incident picture). The court custodial staff then had the unenviable task of removing the remainder of the gum from the table, which they dutifully did.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Why is there a picture on the docket? We believed you! And I don\u2019t want to downplay the hard work custodial staff bring, but the order makes it sound like they were handling vials of Sarin Gas when they probably ran a putty knife over it and then rubbed it down with Fabuloso. <\/p>\n

\n

Court staff and I inferred that the gum had to have been stuck under the table at some point during the morning hearing because there had been no hearings in that courtroom since Tuesday, and the gum was still fresh and stringy. Thus, to get to the bottom of the incident, I ordered Plaintiff to \u201cfile a notice identifying who stuck the chewed gum under the table and show cause why the Court should not impose appropriate sanctions on the person who did so.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s like Encyclopedia Brown but thankfully the judge didn\u2019t have to send that goon Sally out to break someone\u2019s legs off stage.<\/p>\n

The plaintiff in the civil matter fessed up in a written apology, promising it won\u2019t happen again. Presumably because someone turned her on to Altoids. Her lawyer vouched for her. The judge forwarded it to the affected Assistant U.S. Attorney for potential dry-cleaning restitution, and decided \u201ca simple admonishment will suffice.\u201d<\/p>\n

No kidding. It\u2019s appropriate that the judge didn\u2019t try to stack a penalty atop someone who already agreed to pay. You don\u2019t want to punish someone twice\u2026 that would be Double(Mint) Jeopardy.<\/p>\n

Even though this ends this chapter, the judge has ideas if this comes up again:<\/p>\n

\n

That said, if anything like this happens again, I will come up with sanctions that are commensurate with the schoolchild-nature of the violation\u2014maybe sitting in the courtroom under the supervision of a court security officer handwriting \u201cI will not stick my gum under a courtroom table again\u201d 100 times on notebook paper; an afternoon of helping the court custodial staff clean the courtroom and adjacent public areas; and\/or a couple hours of scraping gum off the sidewalk in front of the courthouse.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Real \u201cdisgruntled vice principal\u201d energy.<\/p>\n

Again, this is disgusting and it\u2019s entirely appropriate to admonish the party responsible \u2014 if not necessarily publicly. But this is Florida. It\u2019s hard not to feel a touch of vertigo watching the judiciary leap into action over Juicy Fruit while the legal system has a \u201cget out of murder free card\u201d if the killer can prove they were scared enough and libraries purge Heather Has Two Mommies like it\u2019s a national security threat. It\u2019s not Judge Wetherell\u2019s fault \u2014 he\u2019s just trying to keep his courtroom a step above the floor of a Greyhound \u2014 but there\u2019s something to a system that elevates the little things while bigger injustices thrive. <\/p>\n

Something to chew on. <\/p>\n

Ugh.<\/p>\n

(Check out the order on the next page\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Chewed Gum Under Courthouse Table Becomes Federal Case Because Of Course It Does<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first skimmed this order from Judge T. Kent Wetherell II, I thought it said \u201cThings would have been considerably worse for Plaintiff had she not admitted it because the courtroom security video clearly shows her placing the GUN under the table.\u201d How could a judge respond to someone sneaking a firearm into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":124126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Headshot-300x200-6ysSGm.jpeg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}