Man Pulls Two Bags of Pot Out of His Underwear During Court, Judge Reacts

Last week Hamilton County, OH Municipal Court Judge Bernie Bouchard was deciding cases in his courtroom when the overwhelming odor of marijuana caused him to stop the proceedings.

“This courtroom has an overwhelming smell of marijuana,” the judge said. “So whomever has it, if you want to give it up right now it’s going to be destroyed. If you don’t, we’re bringing the drug dog over and you’re going to be doing a lot of time in jail when we find it. So who has the marijuana?”

This caused the defendant of the case that was being heard at the time, Darius Dabney, to admit that he had smoked some weed that morning. But Darius denied that he had any marijuana on him.

After some back and forth with the judge, during which Mr. Dabney showed that he was probably on something a little stronger than just cannabis (referring to the judge as “Mr. Bernie”), the defendant produced two bags of marijuana from inside his pants.

When further pressed on what possible reason he would have to bring 2 bags of marijuana into court with him, Mr. Dabney was unable to produce a coherent answer. In the end he was found in contempt of court and received another day in jail, but the judge was lenient on him since he finally came clean and was truthful.

“You know what, I just want to tell you one thing,” Judge Bouchard said. “You know, at some point in your life all you have left is your word, okay, you know, and to be honest. You hear what I’m saying? You know, it’s just so disappointing that, you know, you try to lie. I’ve been in court every day for 20 years as an assistant prosecutor, a magistrate, and a judge. And for you to think that I’m stupid and you’re going to pull one over on me, I mean, that’s just illogical. But you know what I appreciate in this courtroom is honesty, you know. If you can say I did something, I’m sorry, I learned from it, that goes a long way than no I didn’t and lying, you know. So, I mean, you did come clean, but it took a little coaxing, but that’s better than you getting charged with a felony for bringing drugs into the jail. You know what I’m saying? So I hope that you at least learned from this and can be honest in the future.”

Quite a heartwarming end to a rather bizarre story.