A defense lawyer's pants caught on fire while he was delivering a closing argument at an arson trial:
Stephen Gutierrez, who was arguing that his client's car spontaneously combusted and was not intentionally set on fire, had been fiddling in his pocket as he was about to address jurors when smoke began billowing out his right pocket, witnesses told the Miami Herald.
He rushed out of the Miami courtroom, leaving spectators stunned. After jurors were ushered out, Gutierrez returned unharmed, with a singed pocket, and insisted it wasn't a staged defense demonstration gone wrong, observers said. Instead, Gutierrez blamed a faulty battery in an e-cigarette, witnesses told the Miami Herald. "It was surreal," one observer told the Miami Herald.
Jurors convicted his client of second-degree arson anyway.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MrGuy on Friday March 10 2017, @03:26PM
I'm fairly sure we're going to see an appeal based on the notion that the jury seeing your lawyer's pants literally catch fire would damage said lawyer's credibility.
Whether they argue it as "undue prejudice" or "ineffective counsel" will be an interesting choice...