By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
Things seldom get out of hand in federal court. Sometimes a defense attorney or prosecutor asks a witness an objectionable question that stirs a round of passionate arguments. Sometimes a judge loudly scolds. or even screams at an attorney.
But Monday, the Detroit News reported that jurors in the Highwaymen Motorcycle Club racketeering trial in downtown Detroit “got a shock this morning when a woman in the audience stood up and accused a government witness of murdering her son.”
The woman pointed to the witnesses on the stand, Daniel Sanchez, a former vice-president of the Detroit Highwaymen Motorcycle Gang, and shouted “He murdered my son,” according to the News.
The woman was referring to an unsolved 1999 killing, the News reported.
U.S. District Judge Nancy G. Edmunds excused jurors and the woman explained that she had heard from a defendant in the case, who is not on trial, that the man she says murdered her son was to be testifying.
The jury was subsequently called back in the courtroom and told to ignore the outburst, the News reported. It was unclear what if anything was done to the woman.
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