Ira Glass

And the judge is kind of like, I'm going to see what all the attorneys think about this.

I should say also the jury is not back from the break.

It's like the potential jury is not seeing this whole back and forth.

Anyway, the judge pulls all the attorneys like, do you guys think there should be a mistrial?

And even the government, whose case was supposedly hurt beyond repair because of this shirt, they seem taken aback.

They seem surprised by this turn of events.

And they say basically, I don't know.

They don't co-sign the mistrial.

They don't ask for a mistrial.

They don't ask for a mistrial.

And, OK, it is against the rules of the courtroom to wear a shirt like this, a shirt with a message on it.

I talked to a federal prosecutor from the same district who agreed with the judge that it could undermine the whole trial.

She said, if you're going to throw out the whole case and restart it because of a shirt, this was just the first day.

You're not losing much.

Someone else I talked to, a federal defense attorney in Texas, said she'd never wear a shirt like that to court.

But she also said, I don't agree with the judge that there was no other option besides mistrial.

There are lots of options.

You can sanction the lawyer.

You could fine them.

You can tell the jury to disregard what they've seen.