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Sat 15 Jul, 2006 12:59 pm
Thanking Jesus in court lands man in jail
HONOLULU - Junior Stowers raised his hands and exclaimed, "Thank you, Jesus!" in court last month when he learned a jury found him innocent of abusing his son.
But his joy was short-lived when Circuit Judge Patrick Border held him in contempt of court for the "outburst" and threw him in jail.
Stowers, 47, sat in the courtroom and a cellblock for about six hours until the judge granted him a hearing on the contempt charge and released him.
The judge at a July 7 hearing, dropped the contempt charge, a petty misdemeanor that carries up to 30 days in jail.
Stowers couldn't be reached for comment. But his attorney in the contempt case, Deputy Public Defender Susan Arnett, said he wasn't treated fairly.
"I don't think there's anything about saying 'Thank you, Jesus' that rises to the level of contemptuous behavior in this case," she told The Honolulu Advertiser.
Stowers is a devoutly religious man active in his church who spontaneously expressed his thanks to the higher power in which he believed, she said.
Family members and Stowers' pastor at Assembly of God Church, Iakopo Sale, who watched from the gallery were "very upset that those words could land somebody in jail," Arnett said.
Border declined to comment but indicated the court minutes reflected his actions. The minutes showed he found Stowers' "nonverbal gestures and outbursts to be disruptive and improper regardless of content."
Court minutes said Border later dropped the charge because he realized Stowers' trial lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Carmel Kwock, did not have time to tell Stowers the judge had ordered both sides not to display emotion when the verdict was announced.
Stowers, of Honolulu, was charged with hitting his 15-year-old son with a broomstick in January. The misdemeanor charge of abusing a household member carries a sentence of up to a year in jail. Stowers was free on a $1,000 bond.
During the trial last month, the boy recanted his earlier statements that his father hit him, according to court records.
Now, there's a fine example of senensationalistically exploitive partisan opinionating masquerading as news.
Whether the dude at question had broken into a medley from The Sound of Music, or a series of handstanding backflips while quoting from Plato, the outburst itself, not its content, is what got him in trouble.
Thank Jesus for judges like that.
On the other hand, since none of us were there, its debatable as to how loud and disruptive the actual exclamation was, and therefore the actual motivation of the judge, even though I would tend to agree it was probably becasue the decibel level was inappropriate.
Imagine if he yelled out "Thank you Satan!"
How can we be sure anything would've happened differently in that case, or that anything would have happened at all?
One thing he's obviously guilty of: Not paying attention to his trial. It was the jury, not Jesus, he needs to thank. Further, it appears Jesus may have been an accomplice in his legal problems. You know, spare the broomstick, spoil the child.
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