![]() Alcohol was the precipitating cause of Riggins’ remarks. Much has been made and parodied of that infamous evening in Washington, D.C., but O’Connor laughed it off. You’re too tight.” Riggins later passed out at the event and began snoring loudly during Vice President George Bush’s post-dinner speech. ![]() John Riggins, a stand-out Washington Redskins player, made headlines when, at a Washington Press Club dinner, he repeatedly uttered to a shocked Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, “Come on Sandy baby, loosen up. The only other time I can remember a judge and a professional athlete getting into a disagreement like this was in January 1985 on Capital Hill. Was there malice behind this? Was Johnson trying to show a vagrant disrespect in the courtroom and for the judge? I think not. Johnson delivered the untimely backside slap at an emotionally driven, off the cuff moment. How was the single emblematic gesture of a butt slap - which is commonplace amongst football players - deemed a show of disrespect for the court? Should Johnson have done a fist pump? Or perhaps a Clinton thumb? The judge stated to Johnson that he “needed to appreciate all that has been done for him” and accused him of not taking the court proceedings seriously. What I find disturbing is that the end does not justify the means. I am not condoning the actions of Johnson that landed him here in court in the first place. I, for one, am a bit dumbfounded by the continuous undoing of Johnson whether it be on the football field or, like this time, in a courtroom. The audience in the courtroom was quickly silenced as the six-time Pro Bowl player was led away in handcuffs. The penalty was to take Johnson out of the game and put him in jail for 30 days. The New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins wide receiver was due to perform community service and undergo counseling in exchange for no jail time, but after Judge McHugh saw the proverbial butt slap, she immediately nixed the agreement and threw a metaphorical yellow flag. Swickle had seemingly worked out a plea deal in regards to a domestic violence incident that took place last summer between Johnson and his now-ex-wife, Evelyn Lozada. ![]() The courtroom audience erupted in laughter when Johnson seemingly, without malice or forethought, delivered a seemingly innocuous butt slap to the backside of his attorney, Adam Swickle, as a gesture of thanks. Leanna Bablitz once wrote, “A gesture is an important means of intensifying the spoken words to raise the emotions of those in the courtroom.”īut a gesture gone wrong in a courtroom can be problematic, as it was when judge Kathleen McHugh had a different interpretation of the physical gesture witnessed in her South Florida courtroom a few days ago.
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