When you’re in court, it’s a time to be serious. Not only the people involved in the case, but also any family members who may be visiting the courtroom to bear witness to the proceedings. One no-nonsense judge had all she could handle when a woman disrupted her courtroom. Michigan Judge Qiana Lillard isn’t someone to play around with. She has a famously unconventional approach and will toss someone in jail if they buck up against her authority, and rightly so. In the case we’re discussing here, Judge Lillard was handling a drunk-driving situation in which a woman who was driving under the influence of alcohol killed an innocent man.
The woman who was driving drunk was Amanda Kosal, who was driving after she had been drinking and collided with Jerome Zirker, age 31, and Zirker’s fiance, 31-year-old Brittany Johnson. Zirker died in the accident and Johnson continues to struggle with her injuries. Before the court reached its sentencing stage, the family of the deceased victim was allowed to read statements to the accused, as is often the case in situations where someone has been killed. They’re called impact statements, and Jerome Zirker’s daughter was reading a statement detailing the impact the loss of her father was going to have on her life.
Believe it or not, Kosal’s family started giggling in the back of the courtroom. One of the women involved was apparently Kosal’s mother. Unfortunately for these disrespectful people, Judge Lillard wasn’t in the mood to play around and she wasn’t going to tolerate it in her courtroom. Stopping the proceedings, Judge Lillard said the following.
“Whoever can sit here at a tragic moment like this and laugh and smile when somebody has lost a family member… in the entire time that Mr. Zirker’s sister was speaking, that clown — and that’s what I am going to call him, a clown — was sitting there smiling and laughing. And you [pointing to Kosal’s mother] can go, too. Because if you don’t know how to act, you can go to jail. So leave…”
YouTube
The judge added that this is “a court of law, and these are very serious matters.” Judge Lillard said that while she understood that they were upset because a loved one is going to prison, it was no excuse for their behavior. She pointed out that Ms. Kosal is going to prison for choices that she made and that she would have to pay the price. She reminded them that people in that courtroom are grieving and saddened because a senseless act took their loved one away from them. The judge accused the family members of Kosal of treating the situation “like it’s a joke.”
“Not in Courtroom 502. Not today and not any other day,” Judge Lillard said.
At first, the judge let the mother leave, but then she called her back and told her that she was sentencing her to 93 days in Wayne County Jail for disruptive and disrespectful behavior. Then the judge asked, “Anybody else want to go? Try it.” As it turns out, the judge only made her serve one day out of the 93-day sentence, but hopefully, she learned a lesson about how to behave in a courtroom.
https://www.facebook.com/tristateweather/videos/2036891376376460/
Here’s a news story about this incident. Judge Lillard isn’t playing around, and I don’t blame her. In a statement on the court’s Facebook page, Judge Lillard expressed her gratitude for the support of everyone who visited the page to express their feelings. She says that she’s honored to have the privilege to serve the citizens of Wayne County.
