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The story goes like this: Steve Gradert was standing before a federal judge with his client when a cellphone ring pierced the courtroom.
Everyone looked around.
U.S. Senior District Judge Wesley Brown looked annoyed — disgusted, even.
A few deputy U.S. marshals were in the courtroom, as were some of the judge’s staff. Gradert, an assistant federal public defender, can’t remember if they were there for a sentencing hearing or a plea.
“All of a sudden, we heard a phone ringing,” he said. “And Judge Brown always was a stickler for courtroom decorum. He was pretty tough-minded about that kind of stuff.”
Gradert remembers he didn’t check his own cellphone — he didn’t want the judge thinking the ring was coming from him.
Then Brown, who died recently at age 104, “reached inside his robe and pulled out his cellphone,” Gradert recalled.
Grinning, the judge said, “I can’t talk” into the phone, folded it and put it back into his robe.
Then he grabbed his gavel and tapped it on the bench.
“That will be a $50 fine,” he announced.
“He pretended to hold himself in contempt of court,” Gradert said.
Cellphones are so commonplace today — everyone from schoolchildren to grandparents have them — that judges have to deal with an obnoxious ringtone from time to time. Most judges say they are pretty tolerant of a ringing cellphone, though they’ll take them away if people don’t quickly shut them off. Retired Sedgwick County District Court Judge David Kennedy was notorious for his disdain for cellphones. To this day, he doesn’t have one.
Three strikes, you’re out
Most people can’t even get a cellphone into the federal courthouse in Wichita. Security guards tell them to leave their phones in their vehicles.
Attorneys who are often in the building are allowed to keep theirs with them but are expected to keep them on silent or off, Gradert said.
At the Sedgwick County Courthouse, signs warn people to stay off their phones and keep them silent in courtrooms.
District Court Judge Ben Burgess said that when he was the presiding criminal judge, he would take ringing cellphones away from people if they went off during docket call, a busy proceeding that packs the courtroom.
“That was my universal rule,” he said.
At the beginning of each docket call, he would tell people, “If you have to have a conversation, take them out into the hallway, and if any cellphones go off, I’ll keep them in my possession until we’re finished with the docket.”
Burgess has seized cellphones from courtroom guards, media, lawyers and people in the gallery.
One time a guard was walking across the courtroom and “his cellphone goes off. He didn’t miss a step; he pulled it out of his pocket and just handed it to me on the bench,” Burgess said.
A few days later, the guard’s cellphone went off again.
Burgess said he joked: “You know, I have a ‘three strikes, you’re out’ rule.”
Ubiquitous distractions
Chief District Court Judge James Fleetwood said he typically just asks people to turn off their phone if it rings.
But one time during jury selection, a prospective juror’s phone rang. When Fleetwood asked the man to turn off the phone, the man brushed him off and said, “I need to take this.”
“I kept it for the rest of the day,” Fleetwood said.
His own phone went off once, Fleetwood said. He joked, “That’s going to get confiscated.”
Since then, his administrative aide, he said, always asks him “Is your phone turned off?” before he heads into the courtroom.
Fleetwood said he understands it’s easy to forget a cellphone is on.
“Cellphones are so ubiquitous,” he said. “Sometimes it feels like it would kill a person to not have their cellphone.”
District Court Judge Mark Vining agreed.
“I recognize that our society has gotten to the point where most people have their cellphones attached to their hip. I don’t get upset with it unless the people act like they don’t want to turn it off,” Vining said. “The fact that they go off, it’s a distraction.”
People whose cellphones ring in court are usually pretty apologetic, District Court Judge Joseph Bribiesca said.
“I’m not a tyrant about it,” he said. “I will stop the proceeding. And I’ll tell them, ‘Whoever has that phone please turn it off.’ ”
Bribiesca said he did confiscate a cellphone once after it went off more than once during the same proceeding.
“The person brought me the phone, and after the end of the proceeding, I gave it back to him,” he said.
“It hasn’t happened to me that often,” he said. “And that’s a good sign because I think people do pay attention and they do turn off the phone. I think as a general rule people still have respect when they come into the courtroom.”
Although there are signs reminding people to turn phones off, everybody has a lot on their mind when they’re in court, District Court Judge Phil Journey said.
“I am very tolerant,” he said. “I know people forget them. Cellphones today are like an appendage. I’ve left mine in my pocket by mistake and had it go off. It can happen to anybody.”
District Judge Clark Owens II said, “so far mine’s never gone off, thank goodness. I put mine on vibrate all day.”
Kennedy, who retired from the bench in 2007, said he confiscated a cellphone “every other week or so, maybe.”
He said his reputation for his disdain for cellphones got around.
“Word got around that you don’t take your blankety-blank cellphone into that courtroom,” he said.
