CATLETTSBURG An Ashland man with a lengthy rap sheet probably won’t be making any more snide remarks to a sitting judge after receiving quick consequences on Thursday.
After clearing up some confusion between two defendants with the same name, 41-year-old Jeffrey A. Hurn approached a podium at the Boyd County Detention Center livestreaming a feed in front of Boyd Circuit Judge John Vincent.
Hurn was set to appear for arraignment in front of the judge on six total cases charging him with several different felonies including, property theft, fentanyl trafficking, wanton endangerment of a police officer and possessing a handgun as a convicted felon.
The first order of business for Judge Vincent was to determine if Hurn had an attorney, to which Hurn said he thought he had previously retained a local attorney — but with that attorney absent from the courtroom and after a phone call to his office — Hurn learned that wasn’t the case.
Prior to Vincent appointing Hurn attorney John Thompson with the Department of Public Advocacy, Hurn said he had recently been released from a local ICU due to needing medical care, but the judge said Hurn was held on bond and the jail was capable of caring for his medical needs and could transport him to the hospital if needed.
Hurn, apparently unhappy with the judge’s response, asked Vincent, “What is your name, by the way?”
Ignoring his question, Vincent began to rattle off each case and the charges associated with them, but Hurn interrupted, telling the judge, “Half of these cases aren’t even mine,” but Vincent rolled on, having already determined Hurn’s middle name and birth date to distinguish him from the similarly named defendant earlier.
“Those ain’t my cases no way. I done told you that 10 minutes ago,” Hurn interrupted.
In the middle of Vincent reading off roughly 25 of Hurn’s alleged charges and Thompson pleading not guilty to each of them, Hurn committed yet another courtroom faux pas by turning from the podium and walking toward the exit of the jail’s holding room.
Vincent ordered a deputy jailer to escort Hurn back to the podium, prompting Hurn to ask the judge, “What do you want?”
In response, Vincent ruled Hurn was in contempt of court — a common punishment for defendants who disrupt court proceedings or show disrespect to the court’s authority — resulting in 30 additional days to any other sentence Hurn may receive in the future and ordered the jail to revoke any privileges Hurn has while behind bars for an unclear amount of time.
Hurn is set to appear before Judge Vincent again for a pre-trial conference (on all six cases) on Aug. 14.
