“Mr. Harris, are you driving?” Simpson asked. “I’m pulling into my doctor’s office, actually,” Harris said. “So just give me one second, I’m parking right now.”
Harris did not say why he was visiting the doctor. The Washington Post was unable to contact Harris’s legal representative outside of hours.
The hearing, which took place in Washtenaw County’s 14A District Court on May 15, is the latest of many bizarre scenes that have unfolded in courtrooms since the onset of the pandemic, from a doctor joining a hearing from an operating rooms to an attorneys accidentally showing up with a cat filter. Washtenaw County announced last year that it was discontinuing live-streaming dockets and that the use of Zoom would remain at the judge’s discretion.
The perplexed judge tilts his head and waits several seconds for the defendant to park. Placing his head in his hand, he asks Harris: “Are you stationary?”
“I’m pulling in right now at this second,” Harris says.
After Harris appeared to park his vehicle, the judge tried to make sense of the situation.
“He was just driving and he doesn’t have a license,” Simpson said. After a lingering silence, Harris can be seen opening and closing his mouth at least twice before saying, “Um.”
“I’m looking at his records. He doesn’t have a license,” Simpson said. “He’s suspended, and he’s just driving.”
“That is correct, your honor,” Harris’s attorney, Washtenaw County Assistant Public Defender Natalie Pate, says from the courtroom.
“I don’t even know why he would do that,” Simpson said, before revoking Harris’s bond and ordering him to turn himself into the Washtenaw County jail by 6 p.m. that day.
“Oh, my God,” Harris sighs, throwing his head back in the driver’s seat.
Footage of the hearing soon spread on social media, where users declared the Zoom hearing the “funniest” video they had seen in a while, as others expressed sympathy for the public defender who had tried during the hearing to have the case adjourned. Fox 2 reported that Harris’s attorney said she “strives to live in a world where people are not jailed for nonviolent offenses,” without commenting further.
This is not the first time a Zoom court hearing has gone viral.
In March 2021, a virtual domestic violence case made headlines when the defendant appeared on a Zoom hearing from inside the apartment of his alleged victim, prompting officials to postpone the hearing as the prosecutor voiced concerns for the victim’s safety, and highlighting the dangers that faced domestic violence victims when they had to stay at home during the pandemic.
In February 2021, a California doctor attended his Zoom court hearing to contest a traffic violation while performing surgery on a patient. “I’m in an operating room right now,” he said while wearing scrubs, gloves, a mask and surgical cap. The judge immediately halted the trial, citing the welfare of the patient.
But there have also been lighter moments.
That same month, CBS 13 reported that during a virtual hearing in Sacramento, a defendant logged on while getting his hair cut at a barber shop. “You know what, you’re going to have to come back on a different day when I have your full attention,” the judge said.
That month, a Texas attorney also accidentally signed into a hearing using a Zoom filter that made him take on the appearance of a kitten. “I’m not a cat,” he told the courtroom as the feline mouthed what he was saying.
The lawyer, Rod Ponton, later told The Post he was happy to give people an opportunity “to laugh at my cat moment at my expense. … We’ve had a stressful year.”
