{"id":46135,"date":"2020-02-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/duplicate-3504444.findlaw4.flsitebuilder.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/tennessee-man-arrested-after-lighting-up-in-court\/"},"modified":"2020-03-17T23:34:51","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T04:34:51","slug":"tennessee-man-arrested-after-lighting-up-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/blog\/2020\/02\/tennessee-man-arrested-after-lighting-up-in-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee man arrested after lighting up in court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It takes almost exactly two hours to make the 135-mile drive north of Chattanooga to Lebanon, the seat of Wilson County. An unusual scene unfolded there recently when a Tennessee man who had been <a href=\"\/criminal-defense\/drug-crimes\/\">charged with marijuana possession<\/a> took a decidedly theatrical approach to making his opposition clear to our state&rsquo;s weed laws.<\/p>\n<p>While the judge was making some notes, the 20-year-old defendant reached into a coat pocket, pulled out a marijuana cigarette and lit up. He took a puff and turned to the packed courtroom and said, &ldquo;the people deserve better.&rdquo; According to a reporter, laughter erupted among those in attendance. However, the judge was not amused.<\/p>\n<p>The weed-puffing defendant was immediately taken into custody by bailiffs and then sentenced by the unamused judge to spend 10 days behind bars for contempt of court.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been in law enforcement for 20 years and this is by far the most bizarre thing I have seen in a courtroom,&rdquo; a sheriff&rsquo;s deputy said. He added that judges expect respect and that the defiant defendant &ldquo;definitely disrespected the judge and the courtroom, so there should be consequences.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>While there is reasonable debate here in Tennessee and elsewhere about the pros and cons of legalization of recreational marijuana, few would argue that it&rsquo;s a good idea to light up in a court setting. The defendant <a href=\"https:\/\/fox59.com\/2020\/01\/29\/tennessee-man-arrested-for-smoking-marijuana-in-courtroom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in this case<\/a> will have to decide for himself whether 10 days in jail is a price worth paying for making a point.<\/p>\n<p>If you face drug charges here in Chattanooga, contact a criminal defense lawyer experienced in protecting rights and freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It takes almost exactly two hours to make the 135-mile drive north of Chattanooga to Lebanon, the seat of Wilson County. An unusual scene unfolded there recently when a Tennessee man who had been charged with marijuana possession took a decidedly theatrical approach to making his opposition clear to our state&rsquo;s weed laws. While the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drug-crimes"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}