Recently in Strange Courtroom Behavior Category

Dude, where's my defendant?

A Rastafarian pot enthusiast has pulled the "religion" card in his defense. But when his case came up in court this week, he was nowhere to be found.

Robert Joseph Simmons, 33, believes he doesn't need to worry about a thing -- not because every little thing is gonna be alright, but because he claims marijuana is a "core tenet" of his religion. Simmons appears to take his religious practice very seriously, because he was busted with more than two and half pounds of pot and 13 pills of hydromorphine, The San Francisco Examiner reports.

But where is Simmons now? And is it possible to legally smoke Mary Jane in the name of religion?

A prosthetic eye popped out as a victim testified from the witness stand, prompting a Philadelphia judge to declare a mistrial.

John Huttick wept in the witness box as he recounted an early morning fight outside a tavern in 2011. The 48-year-old told jurors he tried to intervene in a fight and was punched by 23-year-old Matthew Brunelli, costing him his left eye.

But in mid-testimony, Huttick's prosthetic eye literally popped out of its socket, causing jurors to gasp and rise as if to get away from the gruesome sight, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Penelope Soto may have been blowing off steam when she gave a judge the middle finger, but he didn't take it kindly. In response to her disrespect, the judge put her in jail for 30 days on a contempt charge.

Soto was arrested for drug possession when she was allegedly found with Xanax in Florida. On Monday, she had a hearing with Circuit Judge Jorge Rodriguez-Chomat.

The hearing was only intended to determine the appropriate bail. But one thing led to another, and now Soto is going to spend time behind bars before her case is even heard.

In a surprising twist, a defendant's glasses became the focus of a murder trial when the prosecutor accused him of pulling a Clark Kent move on witnesses.

Donnell Harris wore glasses to his trial for second-degree murder and prosecutors took note of his change in appearance. They weren't impressed with his intellectual look but instead realized that Harris doesn't normally wear glasses, a fact they mentioned to the judge.

But when the judge issued a jury instruction that referenced the glasses, Harris's attorney felt it had gone too far. Too bad the appellate court didn't agree with him.

Violence doesn't generally solve anything but Lamarcus Williamson was apparently compelled to punch his defense attorney in the face after his sentence was read.

It didn't improve his position in court. Not only had the judge given him the maximum sentence for the crime at issue in the hearing, he got additional time for what happened in the courtroom. It's a general rule that judges like order and they're willing to punish people who go for chaos instead.

Williamson's attorney, public defender Dan Hall, never even saw it coming.

An Ohio man who tried to help a friend in court was held in contempt for wearing low-sagging pants that revealed his underwear. Durrell Brooks tried to offer proof of insurance for a friend's car accident, but instead was ordered to jail for three days for his saggy attire.

"I felt I had no choice," Lorain Municipal Court Judge Mark Mihok told the local Chronicle-Telegram.

Brooks is the third person in the last month whom Judge Mihok has held in contempt for saggy pants. And Mihok is not alone in his judicial anti-saggy pants crusade.

Think sexting is only for overly hormonal teens and adults trying to spice up their passionless marriages? Think again. Detroit has got itself one of the nation's very first sexting judges.

Circuit Judge Wade McCree is accused of intentionally texting a partially nude photo of himself to a married female bailiff. When asked about the picture, he replied, "Hot dog, yep that's me."

"I've got no shame to my game," he added.

Perhaps he should get some.

Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy for 29-year-old Robert Wilkinson? The Canadian crooner is getting his six minutes of fame, as his drunken rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" following a DUI arrest has gone viral.

Wilkinson, of Edson, Alberta, first tells Royal Canadian Mounted Police he is not "sort of intoxicated, as you proclaim" in the video taken inside a police cruiser on Nov. 27, Canada's National Post reports.

Moments later, Wilkinson begins belting out the epic Queens tune, barely missing a beat -- despite his apparent inebriation, and the song's famously abrupt changes in tone and tempo.

It's not normal for a judge to pull a gun in court, but leave it to Georgia to produce one that does. Judge David Barrett of the Enotah Judicial Circuit brandished a pistol mid-hearing last week while a witness was being questioned on the stand.

The act was not one of self-defense, but instead an attempt to make "a poor rhetorical point." When a sexual assault victim stopped cooperating with her attorney, he told her she was "killing her case."

He then offered her his gun, adding, "You might as well shoot your lawyer."

A high roller who bet on some creative tax accounting has lost an appeal in court. The Canadian man tried to deduct more than $96,000 in gambling losses as business expenses.

Giuseppe Tarascio's business-expense claims may have been a gamble from the start, but the phone-company technician tried to back them up with proof, the Toronto Sun reports.

Tarascio kept records of his gambling and touted his "special knowledge and skill as a gambler" in trying to claim casino and horse-betting losses as business expenses, according to the Sun. But a Canadian appeals court held that wasn't enough.