Ogden City Justice Court spent over an hour in the dark Friday morning, leaving Judge Michael Junk’s courtroom in limbo before closing the building at 11:30 a.m.
At approximately 10 a.m., the Ogden City Justice Court building lost all power, and 13 people sat in the dimly lit courtroom gallery waiting to go before the judge. Junk called a recess with hopes of continuing with electricity, but 56 minutes later the lights were still out.
Members in the gallery began talking about the power outage. “They should hurry up and dismiss us,” Shar Wayment said. “Dismiss all charges.”
Vanessa Ybarra, another member of the gallery, shared Wayment’s sentiment.
According to Lt. Deputy Constable Chris Stewart, a defendant in another courtroom was talking about the powers of Satan just prior to the power outage.
Neither Ogden City nor Rocky Mountain Power know what caused the outage, but informed officers of the court power would be back on at 3:30 p.m. Junk felt there was no need to waste people’s time and proceeded with all remaining cases on the docket in the dark.
