A Chancery Court judge in Tupelo, Miss., on Wednesday held a lawyer in criminal contempt of court after he refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in court.
Danny Lampley, who has worked with the ACLU on a school prayer case, was reported to have stood up and was respectful when the judge asked everyone in court to recite the Pledge. But Lampley was silent.
That prompted Judge Talmadge Littlejohn to throw him in jail with the following order:
BE IT REMEMBERED, this date, the Court having ordered all present in the courtroom to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegience, and having found that Danny Lampley, Attorney at Law, failed and refused to do so, finds said Danny Lampley to be in criminal contempt of court.
The order states that Lampley was to be held in the Lee County Jail until he agreed to recite the Pledge in court, but the judge released him about four hours later.
This isn't Judge Littlejohn's first brush with controversy.
In 1974 he was a district attorney involved in a case in which some police officers shot and killed a black youth. After presenting the case to a grand jury and getting no indictments, boycotts and protests by local black leaders were organized.
To make a long story short, the grand jury was called back into session -- and proceeded to investigate the leaders of the boycott.
A court order had been entered enjoining the protest leaders from carrying out their boycott. That order was overturned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.