Judge irate as defendant joins by Zoom while driving—then lies about it

A local judge in Woodhaven, Michigan, lost it this week when a defendant showed up to her court hearing late, on Zoom, and… while driving a car.

Kimberly Carroll was facing a hearing over a few thousand dollars that she allegedly owed and had defaulted on. She was allowed to attend remotely, but when the hearing began, she wasn’t yet available on Zoom.

When she finally joined, Judge Michael McNally told her she needed to turn her camera on.

Carroll appeared on the screen a moment later. She was in the front seat of a car and was on the left-hand side of the vehicle. The judge, who watched this unfold with an unamused expression on his face, asked if Carroll was driving.

“I’m not driving, I’m a passenger in a car,” she said. Carroll added that she was headed out of town on an unspecified “emergency” but added that she “will have my driver pull over.”

The judge noted Carroll’s position on the left-hand side of the vehicle, the seat belt crossing her body from left to right. It certainly looked like she was in the driver’s seat.

“Am I crazy or does it not look like you are driving that car?” he asked her.

“I’m not driving the car. I’m a passenger in the car, sir.”

“What side of the car are you on?” the judge pressed.

“I’m on the left-hand side.”

The judge considered this.

The court hearing in Woodhaven, MI.

“How would you be on the left-hand side if you’re a passenger in the front seat? Am I missing something?

“Right-hand side! I’m sorry, I’ve been sitting in a [Zoom waiting] room, I didn’t know.”

The car continued down the road.

“The seatbelt’s coming out of the driver’s side,” the judge noted. “Now you’re lying to me, right?”

“No, I’m not, sir.”

At this point, the exasperated judge demanded that Carroll “let me see the driver.”

But she did not show him a driver. Instead, she said, “Hang on one second.”

“Now!” thundered the judge.

“I have to ask their permission,” she said.

But she did not ask anyone’s permission. Instead, the car came to a halt at what appeared to be a gas station. Carroll grabbed the phone, opened the car door, and stepped out… of what appeared to be the driver’s side of a vehicle.

The judge, boiling over at this point, was ready to call the hearing.

“You think I’m that stupid?” he said. “I’m going to go ahead and enter a default judgment… You lied to me.”

He directed a court official to make a note that Carroll had been driving while telling the court that she was not driving. She would have to pay the full amount of the claim in the case, plus some court costs.

“Have a great day,” the judge said, ending the hearing. “Thank you.”

“A viral spectacle”

FOX 2 News out of Detroit was able to get in touch with Carroll, who in a statement copped to what she had denied to the judge: Yes, she had been driving.

She took responsibility for “my mistake,” saying that “I panicked in the moment and made the wrong call instead of pulling over or asking to reschedule. For that, I am truly sorry.”

But Carroll was unhappy that her “brief moment of poor judgment” had turned into a “viral spectacle that is affecting my reputation, my family, and my ability to move forward with my life.”

“I am human,” she concluded. “I made a mistake, I own that mistake, and I am willing to accept the consequences. But I hope people will also consider whether the response has been about accountability, or about turning a moment into something far bigger than it needed to be.”

None of us want to be judged solely on our lowest moments, which rarely show the best of who we are or what we can become. And to the extent that people are harassing Carroll or merely mocking her, she is right to call out their uncharitable attitude.

But the reason stories like this go viral is often that they illustrate in a dramatic way some real issue in society. Trying to do other things on a phone while driving down the road is actually a dangerous thing to do—not only to yourself but to others.

Here in Pennsylvania, the state began enforcing a law last June against using “hand-held devices while driving, even while stopped temporarily due to traffic, a red light, or other momentary delay.” The law was named after Paul Miller, who was killed in 2010 “as the result of a distracted driver who reached for their phone while driving.”

When I go for walks in my neighborhood, I sometimes pause on a bridge crossing a busy three-point intersection through a tunnel. It’s a bit dicey; two of the roads that converge come down steep hills and curve while doing so. The tunnel is tight enough that school buses and large trucks often can’t make it through without other vehicles first moving out of the way. It’s the kind of place where you really do need to pay full attention.

But whenever I watch drivers at the intersection, a shocking number of them are—despite the new law—not just tapping away at mobile phones but holding them in one hand, paying at best partial attention while navigating an area where accidents routinely happen. It’s dispiriting to realize how many people seem to believe that their attention is being wasted while behind the wheel and who prefer to multitask by texting, watching videos, or even attending remote court hearings.