The judge and defense counsel both said they hadn\u2019t seen it. The jury didn\u2019t report seeing it. And the defendant denied it. But the thing about someone masturbating under a table is that they\u2019re probably trying to keep it hidden. So, trusting the court clerk\u2019s observation, defense counsel requested a competency evaluation. The judge declined. Littlejohn was sentenced to 18 years, which was not the happy ending he hoped for. <\/p>\n
On appeal, the defendant argues the trial court should have conducted an informal competency inquiry based on this incident. The defendant also went on a jag about everyone trying to \u201cvoodoo\u201d him, as one would expect from a totally fit party. <\/p>\n
The Harris County District Attorney\u2019s office filed its appellate brief, arguing that the trial court didn\u2019t abuse its discretion. Prosecutors argued that the clerk never formally testified to having seen anything (fair enough), disruptive behavior is not conclusive of incompetence (makes sense), stopping trials for competence evaluations for every act like this could incentivize defendants to use inappropriate behavior to stall or derail their cases (certainly worth considering)\u2026. <\/p>\n
And that even if he did masturbate in open court, the fact that he kept it hidden from most of the room meant \u201cappellant\u2019s alleged masturbation is not some evidence suggesting that he was unable to display appropriate courtroom behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh come on! \u201cIf a defendant masturbates in a courtroom and no one is around to see it, is it really inappropriate?\u201d is the legal Zen koan no one asked for.<\/p>\n
This may not be a \u201cmake O.J. try on the gloves\u201d level of overreach, but it\u2019s up there. After just arguing that treating this as an automatic competency evaluation trigger would just reward acting out to delay justice, there\u2019s nothing to be gained by arguing well, actually, it was so discreet that it shouldn\u2019t really count as inappropriate<\/em>. Just because he could keep it to himself doesn\u2019t\u2014STOP. You know what I mean, get your minds out of the gutter.<\/p>\n Additionally, appellant\u2019s ability to hide his actions from the jury, the judge, and even his own attorney seated 3 feet from him show that he was able to conceal his inappropriate actions from the participants of the trial. This fact shows that even if the record contained a suggestion that appellant masturbated during his trial, he did so in a way that did not disrupt the proceedings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cPics or it didn\u2019t happen\u201d as legal standard.<\/p>\n Masturbating in court probably should trigger a competency evaluation. If he passes, he passes, but why not err on the side of \u201cjacking off in court might be an issue.\u201d Nonetheless, the prosecutors presented a perfectly viable argument that this either didn\u2019t happen or if it did the court was within its rights to decide the action wouldn\u2019t be enough. Adding that last argument in the alternative just makes the whole thing look silly. They put forward a credible argument and then they introduced just enough of an eye roll to invite skepticism about the whole brief.<\/p>\n They explicitly did not request oral argument, so we\u2019re judging this based solely on what was inside those briefs. Oh no. \u201cBased solely on the filings,\u201d I mean.<\/p>\n (Brief on next page\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n The post Masturbating In Court Not \u2018Inappropriate\u2019 As Long As No One Notices, Prosecutors Argue<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sometimes, you don\u2019t have to make every argument in the alternative. <\/p>\n For example, the prosecutors in Littlejohn v. State of Texas<\/em> had a number of avenues to challenge a competency evaluation request from the defendant\u2019s counsel. The defense sought to check the defendant\u2019s mental competence after learning that the court clerk observed the defendant masturbating during testimony at the punishment phase of his trial. We\u2019ve all heard some wanky testimony before, but this takes it to another level.<\/p>\n The judge and defense counsel both said they hadn\u2019t seen it. The jury didn\u2019t report seeing it. And the defendant denied it. But the thing about someone masturbating under a table is that they\u2019re probably trying to keep it hidden. So, trusting the court clerk\u2019s observation, defense counsel requested a competency evaluation. The judge declined. Littlejohn was sentenced to 18 years, which was not the happy ending he hoped for. <\/p>\n On appeal, the defendant argues the trial court should have conducted an informal competency inquiry based on this incident. The defendant also went on a jag about everyone trying to \u201cvoodoo\u201d him, as one would expect from a totally fit party. <\/p>\n The Harris County District Attorney\u2019s office filed its appellate brief, arguing that the trial court didn\u2019t abuse its discretion. Prosecutors argued that the clerk never formally testified to having seen anything (fair enough), disruptive behavior is not conclusive of incompetence (makes sense), stopping trials for competence evaluations for every act like this could incentivize defendants to use inappropriate behavior to stall or derail their cases (certainly worth considering)\u2026. <\/p>\n And that even if he did masturbate in open court, the fact that he kept it hidden from most of the room meant \u201cappellant\u2019s alleged masturbation is not some evidence suggesting that he was unable to display appropriate courtroom behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh come on! \u201cIf a defendant masturbates in a courtroom and no one is around to see it, is it really inappropriate?\u201d is the legal Zen koan no one asked for.<\/p>\n This may not be a \u201cmake O.J. try on the gloves\u201d level of overreach, but it\u2019s up there. After just arguing that treating this as an automatic competency evaluation trigger would just reward acting out to delay justice, there\u2019s nothing to be gained by arguing well, actually, it was so discreet that it shouldn\u2019t really count as inappropriate<\/em>. Just because he could keep it to himself doesn\u2019t\u2014STOP. You know what I mean, get your minds out of the gutter.<\/p>\n Additionally, appellant\u2019s ability to hide his actions from the jury, the judge, and even his own attorney seated 3 feet from him show that he was able to conceal his inappropriate actions from the participants of the trial. This fact shows that even if the record contained a suggestion that appellant masturbated during his trial, he did so in a way that did not disrupt the proceedings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cPics or it didn\u2019t happen\u201d as legal standard.<\/p>\n Masturbating in court probably should trigger a competency evaluation. If he passes, he passes, but why not err on the side of \u201cjacking off in court might be an issue.\u201d Nonetheless, the prosecutors presented a perfectly viable argument that this either didn\u2019t happen or if it did the court was within its rights to decide the action wouldn\u2019t be enough. Adding that last argument in the alternative just makes the whole thing look silly. They put forward a credible argument and then they introduced just enough of an eye roll to invite skepticism about the whole brief.<\/p>\n They explicitly did not request oral argument, so we\u2019re judging this based solely on what was inside those briefs. Oh no. \u201cBased solely on the filings,\u201d I mean.<\/p>\n (Brief on next page\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n The post Masturbating In Court Not \u2018Inappropriate\u2019 As Long As No One Notices, Prosecutors Argue<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes, you don\u2019t have to make every argument in the alternative. For example, the prosecutors in Littlejohn v. State of Texas had a number of avenues to challenge a competency evaluation request from the defendant\u2019s counsel. The defense sought to check the defendant\u2019s mental competence after learning that the court clerk observed the defendant masturbating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"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-144265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144265","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=144265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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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<\/p>\n\n
\nJoe 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<\/p>\n