Another vape fire - but this time it's actually funny

[RichJB]

From News24.

Miami — A Miami defence attorney is feeling the heat after his pants caught fire on Wednesday after he told jurors during arguments in an arson case that his client's car spontaneously combusted and wasn't intentionally set.

As he started speaking to the jury, Stephen Gutierrez, 28, said he noticed his pocket began to feel hot.

"When I checked my pocket, I noticed that the heat was coming from a small e-cigarette battery I had in my pocket," Gutierrez told The Associated Press via email on Thursday afternoon. He said he had two to three of the batteries in his right pocket.

The Miami Herald reported Gutierrez was arguing that his client's car spontaneously combusted and wasn't intentionally set on fire.

Gutierrez said he quickly left the courtroom and went to a courthouse bathroom.

"I was able to toss the battery in water after it singed my pocket open," he said.

Gutierrez said the incident was not staged. "No one thinks that a battery left in their pocket is somehow going to 'explode,'" he wrote.

The lawyer ran out of the courtroom and the judge also had the jurors taken to the jury room.

When Gutierrez returned to the courtroom unharmed, he insisted it wasn't a staged defense gone wrong. Later in the day his client, Claudy Charles, 48, was convicted of second-degree arson.

Prosecutors and the Miami-Dade police are investigating the incident. Investigators seized frayed e-cigarette batteries as evidence.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman also could decide to hold Gutierrez in contempt of court.

Gutierrez told the AP that he researched e-cigarette batteries and learned that they can be "extremely dangerous."

"The dangers of these devices, and accessories, have led me to quit using e-cigarette products," he wrote. "At the end of the day, all of these stories and incidents involve real people in real situations. I hope we do not forget that."

Yeah, whatever, dude. The thing I'll remember is that a lawyer was defending a client accused of arson - and his pants caught fire. It gives new meaning to the old rhyme "Liar, liar, pants are on fire"...

 

[incredible_hullk]

Insane article...it's almost like news24 is trying to discredit vaping....bunch of idiots they are

Not the first time they have paraded a stupid vape related article

 

[RichJB]

Well, they just copied it from the Miami Herald where the incident happened, they probably have a syndication arrangement. I don't know what the jurors must have thought:

"And so, in closing, let me stress once again that my client is innocent of arson..."
"FIRE!"
"No, silly, that's what I've been telling you, my client DIDN'T set the fire in his car."
"I ain't talking about your client's car, dude, I'm talking about your pants."
"What? WHAAAAAAA"
Lawyer flees from the room with smoke pouring out of his trousers.

I mean yeah, one shouldn't laugh. And if he'd been burnt, it wouldn't have been funny. But you have to admire the guy's comic timing. Of all the times to have your vape start burning your pants, while defending an arson case takes a special kind of genius.

 

[incredible_hullk]

He's a dumbass for keeping batts in pocket

 

[PSySpin]

Eish buddy your attorney is burning hot today

 

[Rafique]

what bullsh!t, his client probably blamed the car spontaneously combusting on ecigs too.

 

[Stosta]

I like the part where he says no one thinks batteries in their pocket will explode...

Yes... It is quite probable under the right circumstances!

 

[umzungu]

liar liar pants on.....????

 

[Feliks Karp]

liar liar pants on.....????

"...a telephone wire in the middle of a quagmire. This lack of desire is quite dire, feel like a flat tire gonna stick my head in a deep fryer. " Is the full saying just as my grammy used to always tell us.

 

[foGGyrEader]

I'm going to be the devil's advocate here and say maybe he was sweating, which caused the short ...

 

[umzungu]

I'm going to be the devil's advocate here and say maybe he was sweating, which caused the short ...

So is that a sweaty crotch short or a short sweaty crotch?

 

[foGGyrEader]

So is that a sweaty crotch short or a short sweaty crotch?

Well, the emphasis was more on "devils advocate" and that his pants might've caught fire, but that man must've been hell on wheels when he ran out the courtroom.

 

[Feliks Karp]

well if his crotch wasn't wet before the thermal runaway, I'm betting it was a little after.