People have always done weird things in court. Like the person who wanted to legally change their age (sounds like one weird age defying trick. Doctors must hate them!) or the man who tried to sue his date because she was on her phone while they were going out.
Virtual court introduces the world to a new side of stupid.
The brand of stupidity that we’ll be looking at today is brought to you by Jacob Keokuk.
On March 8, Mr. Keokuk was being sentenced after pleading to no insurance and driving with a suspended license. Of course, with COVID restrictions still in place, the court hearing was all virtual so everyone was using Zoom. Judge Middleton was calling in from the courtroom while the prosecutor and defense called in from their own offices. Mr Keokuk, however, decide to call in from the front seat of a car. On the driver’s side, specifically.
Yeah.
Judge Middleton clearly had no patience for this blatant display of brainlessness and called Mr. Keokuk out, “I believe you drove wherever you are in the vehicle you’re in and you’re dumb enough to go on video with you sitting in the driver’s seat of a vehicle. Makes me think you haven’t gotten the message.”
Mr. Keokek seemed to be amused by Judge Middleton’s statement and tried to speak up. But Judge Middleton gave him no time to respond and asked the prosecution for their thoughts.
Prosecutor Davis argues that Mr. Keokuk should serve some jail time because not only was he driving without a license, but he was driving 75 mph with 4 adults and 3 children all crammed inside a Ford Taurus. What’s worse, they discovered that one of the infants in the car wasn’t even in a seatbelt. Driving like that can put a lot of people’s lives at risk.
Finally, Judge Middleton asks Mr. Keokuk if he would like to say anything in response and Mr. Keokuk takes this opportunity to argue that even though he was sitting in the driver’s seat of a car, he had not been driving. He was using his Boss’s car as a place to go while he had to be in court.
Judge Middleton decided to take Keokuk’s word, but going by his tone for the rest of the hearing Judge Middleton probably still thought Keokuk was an idiot.
Keokuk didn’t help to change Judge Middleton’s opinion of him when he asked that the judge take into consideration that he is a single father of two kids and paying the fine (in addition to the laundry list of fines from other charges he has yet to pay) wouldn’t be easy for him.
“Do you want to pay your damn fine or do you want to go to jail? You have a history of not paying your fines here in St. Joseph County,” the judge said, “What am I left with? Patting you on the head and saying ‘please don’t do this anymore?’ You got any suggestions?”
Keokuk could only respond with, “Nope.”
Judge Middleton continued by saying, “You don’t get a single father pass for driving 75 mph with 8 people in your car and not paying your fines and costs” and then promptly set him up for a payment plan for all of his fines.
The video is genuinely entertaining to watch if you want to see the senselessness in real life. It starts to get interesting around the 10 minute mark. Enjoy.
