Among the unspoken rules of courtroom decorum in our judicial system is that participants in a case address the judge as “Judge” or “You Honor.” Another is that defendants dress properly for their court appearances. And that includes wearing pants.
According to Louisville station WDRB (h/t The Blaze):
A female Metro Corrections inmate was brought to Jefferson District Court on Friday morning without a jumpsuit — and appearing to not be wearing pants — prompting a judge to call the jail and ask “what the hell is going on?”
An attorney for the woman told Judge Amber Wolf that the jail “refused to give her pants and any kind of hygiene products that she needed,” according to a video of the hearing from Friday morning.
The woman, who was in jail for not completing a diversion program on a 2014 shoplifting charge, said she had been in Metro Corrections for days without pants, despite repeated requests.
“Excuse me?” Wolf said. “This is outrageous. Is this for real?”
The judge took matters into her hands and, as the defendant and her attorney looked on, phoned the Metro corrections director and asked, “Why there is a female defendant standing in front of me with no pants on?”
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Jail officials said [that at the time of her arrest] the woman was wearing athletic shorts, which were hidden by a long shirt. Steve Durham, a spokesman for the jail, said the woman had not been in custody long enough to be given a jail jumpsuit.
“This is pretty standard that when individuals are arrested, they remain in the clothing that they’ve been arrested in,” Durham said. “Especially for the first 72 hours.”
