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Man With Marijuana Charge Lights Joint in Court

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A Tennessee courtroom got a live demonstration of civil disobedience that nobody in the gallery saw coming.

Spencer Alan Boston walked into Wilson County General Sessions Court on Monday, January 27, 2020, expecting to answer for a simple marijuana possession charge. Instead, the 20-year-old turned his own sentencing into a one-man protest, pulling a joint and a match from his jacket pocket while standing at the podium in front of Judge Haywood Barry. What happened next left bailiffs scrambling and the sheriff’s office calling it one of the strangest scenes they’ve ever worked.

• Boston lit a marijuana cigarette and took several drags directly in front of Judge Haywood Barry before court officers rushed in to subdue and handcuff him.
• As he was pulled away, Boston shouted a message advocating for legal weed in Tennessee: “We the people deserve better!”
• Judge Barry hit him with 10 days in the Wilson County jail for contempt of court, on top of new charges for disorderly conduct and a second count of simple possession.

The Moment Everything Changed

Boston had already been standing at the podium discussing his sentence for the original simple possession charge when he made his move. According to Wilson County authorities, he reached into his jacket, produced the joint and a match, and lit up in full view of Judge Barry and everyone else in the courtroom. He got several drags in before officers reached him.

Lt. Scott Moore of the Wilson County Sheriff’s Office said the timing made clear this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment lapse in judgment. “I think he knew what he was doing before he came to court,” Moore said. Boston was walked out in handcuffs through what Sheriff Robert Bryan described as a lingering cloud of smoke still hanging in the air.

“One of the craziest things I’ve seen.” — Wilson County Sheriff Robert Bryan

A Speech on the Way Out

Boston didn’t go quietly. As court officers moved to restrain him, he used the moment to make his case for legalization out loud, telling the courtroom “We the people deserve better!” It was less a plea for leniency than a protest staged for an audience that included the judge who was about to decide his fate.

The Charges Piled Up Fast

Judge Barry wasted no time responding to the stunt, sentencing Boston to 10 days in the Wilson County jail for contempt of court on the spot. That penalty came in addition to the original simple possession charge that brought him to court in the first place. Booking records show Boston was also hit with a new disorderly conduct charge and a second count of simple possession of marijuana stemming from the joint he lit in front of the bench — meaning a court date meant to resolve one marijuana charge left him facing two, plus contempt and disorderly conduct.

Whatever statement Boston hoped to make about Tennessee’s marijuana laws, the outcome was straightforward: more charges, a jail sentence, and a video that spread far past Wilson County. For anyone curious about the state of mind behind that kind of impulse, the reaction to lighting up cold in front of a judge lines up with what’s been described elsewhere about what getting high is like when you haven’t smoked in a while — except Boston’s version played out with a judge, a gavel, and a jail cell waiting on the other side.