His legal defense was a total car crash.
A Michigan judge was astonished when a man busted for driving with a suspended license appeared before him in a courtroom Zoom call — while driving a car.
Corey Harris, 44, popped up on screen behind the wheel as Washtenaw County Judge J. Cedric Simpson flashed a dumbfounded facial expression on May 15.
“Mr. Harris, are you driving?” Simpson asks, according to footage posted by mlive.com.
Simpson casually confesses that he is.
Judge Cedric Simpson sentenced the defendant to jail time. Honorable Judge Cedric Simpson via Storyful
“I’m pulling into my doctor’s office actually,” he says.
After he parks, Simpson calls him out for flagrantly breaking the law.
“So maybe I don’t understand something. This is a driving with a suspended license [case],” Simpson says to Harris’s lawyer. “And he was just driving. And he didn’t have a license.”
Simpson was dumbfounded by why Corey Harris would appear before him on suspended license charges while driving. Honorable Judge Cedric Simpson via StoryfulHarris’s attorney then tries to explain that those are simply “the charges” — to which Simpson fires back, “No, I’m looking at his record. He doesn’t have a license.”
“I don’t even know why he would do that,” Simpson says in video posted by CBS News, before revoking Harris’s bond and sentencing him to jail time.
Corey Harris told the judge he was pulling into the parking lot of his doctor’s office. Honorable Judge Cedric Simpson via Storyful“Defendant is turning himself into Washington County Jail by 6 p.m. today,” Simpson declares, as Harris’s face drops.
“Oh my god,” Harris says.
