Kane Kellett found out the hard way what it means to be in contempt of court. Kellett decided that he was upset at having to be in court, so he decided to express his displeasure by flipping off the judge and swearing at him as he was being sworn in. Kellett got six months in jail for flipping of Judge G. Martin Zopp after he was cited for contempt of court.
Kellett was in Court facing home invasion charges and aggravated battery and assault when he flipped of Judge Zopp. Read more about this story and check out a classic clip showing some real contempt.
Kellett was out of line from the moment he arrived in the Courtroom. Kellett is accused of breaking into two homes, attacking people in each of the homes and attempting to hit one of the people in the home over the head with a flashlight. He was making his initial appearing before the Court when the Judge asked him if he had an attorney. Kellet’s response was F*** No. He was then told to raise his hand to be sworn in prior to giving testimony.
As Kellett raised his hand he flipped off the judge. The bailiff removed him from the Courtroom and the prosecutor asked that Kellett be cited for criminal contempt. The Judge decided that it was an appropriate citation and issued a six month sentence. The six month sentence will be on top of any sentence he receives for the burglary and assault charges. It will be interesting to see if this contempt sentence gets tacked on consecutively or if he will be able to serve the six months concurrently with his other sentences. If he serves concurrently then he will not have to serve the full six-months on top of his sentence. Concurrently means that he will get credit for each sentence, so it’s like he knocks out two or three days of sentence for every one day he’s behind bars.
This clip though really shows a good example of how to have a judge find you in contempt:
So, Kane Kellett gets six months in jail for flipping off Judge Martin Zopp and for cussing at him. What do you think? Should Kane Kellett have received this sentence, or should Judge Zopp have let it slide? Personally I believe that you respect the office, even if you don’t respect the man, and you should be punished for such behavior. Such a challenge to the authority of the Court is not acceptable, and I think that Kellett is getting of easy with six months.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
He deserves every second …plus a few more months. Lack of respect usually leads to crime…maybe he’ll learn himself some manners while he is behind bars, and straighten his life out.
Nah….too much to hope for. Anyway, I applaud the judge!
November 7th, 2009 at 9:37 am
He must have something seriously wrong with him as a teenager to invade peoples homes when they are home and challenge them directly. I would do a full psych evaluation on him and look to place him in some jail supervised setting for some time. If they don’t turn him around now, he is lost and a big risk to society. As far as his courtroom antics, he was obviously not raised or is mentally disturved, so I would bring his parents into conference and find out just what was going on. But for him to brazenly invade and challenge and assult people in their own homes sounds way beyond anything we can overlook. He is the type of person you may have to incarcerate on any pretext. and he gave them one. He doesn’t seem to understand boundries at all. The Psychiatrist owner of a so. cali spect scanning company, often seen on tv, said that they have noticed big differences in criminals brains from so called regular people that were striking. I don’t know the specifics or accuracy but he strikes me as a candidate. oppositional defiance personality disorder comes to mind, but his home invasions are even more than that. society will need to get ahead of this person rather than pick up his messes. I suspect the judge knew what he was doing. They should use the concurrently only if he enrolls in finishing school and starting college courses and really shows some effort to improve himself, using it as a carrot rather than simply punishing him. If he’s intelligent in other ways. Like apologizes to the judge. I just say, giving him some positive goal to work towards, but he will have to pass the courses and exams, hopefully with at least B’s. At that age you’ve got to engage people, challenge them, or they are forever lost.