U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman on Tuesday declared a mistrial after a defense attorney wore a T-shirt on which there were photos of Civil Rights Era-protestors while questioning potential jurors in the trial of nine defendants accused in connection with a shooting at a North Texas ICE detention center.
Pittman said from the bench that attorney MarQuetta Clayton’s shirt, which she wore under a blazer, was an attempt to visually equate the civil rights movement to the Prairieland Detention Facility shooting, a position perhaps appropriate for argument to the jury, the judge said, but not via clothing to panel members in jury selection.
Pittman learned of the shirt after Clayton had asked questions of the panel for 22 minutes…