“So maybe I don’t understand something,” Simpson said. “This is a driver with a licence suspended?”
Pate replied: “Yes, your honour.”
“And he was just driving?” the judge asked slowly, appearing perplexed. “And he didn’t have a licence?”
Seconds of silence followed, and a chilling realisation appeared to wash over Harris’ face, his mouth agape.
“It’s with the charges your honour, yes,” Pate replied.
Simpson interjected: “No, I’m looking at his record. He doesn’t have a licence. He’s suspended and he’s just driving.”
Pate replied: “That is correct, your honour.”
Harris largely remained silent, though he appeared to utter at points as if he were about to speak.
“I don’t know why he would do that,” Simpson said, before ordering that Harris’s bond be revoked and that he had to turn himself in at the county jail by 6 pm that evening.
Harris, his mouth still open and seat belt fastened across his torso, tilted his head back and sighed, “Oh, my God.”
The video clip ends with that reaction.
Jail records show that Harris was booked into the Washtenaw County Jail that evening, May 15. He was eventually released on bond.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for June 5, according to court records.
A phone call to Pate on Wednesday evening was not immediately returned, and a phone number listed for Harris was out of service.
The video of the court hearing was shared widely and was reminiscent of Zoom conference meeting gaffes that surfaced during the pandemic as people struggled to adapt to the world’s online transition.
In 2021, a doctor in California appeared for a virtual court hearing dressed in scrubs while a patient was on the operating table. The same year, an Ohio state senator who joined a Zoom meeting while driving used a background to make it appear as if he were inside a home.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Discussion about this post