Baffled judge jails man driving during Zoom hearing about suspended license, video shows
.png "Judge Cedric Simpson (right) ordered a man to turn himself in to jail after he attended a Zoom hearing about his suspended license while driving a car, Michigan video shows.")
A Michigan man with a suspended license was driving a car when he attended a scheduled court hearing via Zoom, a brazen move that left the judge baffled but seemingly amused, video shows.
In the video, taken May 15 in an Ann Arbor courtroom, the man appears in the bottom frame, buckled up with his hands on the wheel as Judge Cedric Simpson patiently waits for him to find a place to park. (Note: Skip to 4:20:20 to see the exchange.)
“Are you driving?” Simpson asks.
The man says yes, that he’s pulling into the parking lot of his doctor’s office.
A public defender representing the man quickly calls to adjourn, apparently seeing the problem before Simpson does. But his confusion soon clears.
“OK, so maybe I don’t understand something. This is a driving while license suspended?” he asks the public defender.
She says that’s correct.
“I’m looking at his record, he doesn’t have a license. He’s suspended and he’s just driving,” Simpson says.
The courtroom, and the Zoom call, goes quiet.
“I don’t even know why he would do that,” Simpson says.
Simpson revoked the man’s bond and ordered him to turn himself in to jail by 6 p.m. that same day.