It was a civil confiscation hearing like any other hearing, except for the lawyer cat.
Courts generally do not allow cats to discuss cases. But here was Rod Ponton, a prosecutor in Presidio County, Texas, unable to figure out how to turn off the cat filter in his Zoom call during a hearing on Tuesday at the 394th Texas Court of Justice.
The result was a video immediately hailed on the internet as an instant classic, in the rarefied company of classics like Knife Kid and BBC Dad. He offered a harmless injection of levity when many people are going through a difficult period – and Ponton accepted this in a good mood.
“If I can make the country laugh for a moment in these difficult times, I am happy to let them do it at my expense,” he said in a telephone interview on Tuesday afternoon.
Although the shared recording was less than a minute long, his comedy unfolded second by second, as if it were meticulously scripted.
“Sir. Ponton, I believe you have a filter activated in the video settings,” Judge Roy Ferguson, presiding over the case, begins by telling Ponton in the video.
“Augggh”, an exasperated Mr. Ponton replies, while his kitten face looks helplessly at the corner of the screen, his eyes seem to be filled with terror, shame and sadness. “Can you hear me, judge?” he asks, although audio has never been the problem.
H. Gibbs Bauer, another lawyer on the call, puts on his glasses and leans over to take a closer look at the wonder on his screen. He adjusts his tie, as if unconsciously aware of his supporting role, but keeps his face serious.
Just like a man with an impassive face in another box, identified as Jerry L. Phillips, apparently unfazed by the cat.
Mr. Ponton continues.
“I don’t know how to remove it,” he said. “I have my assistant here and she is trying.”
To move the audience, he offers: “I am prepared to proceed with this”.
Then, crucially, he clarifies: “I’m here live. I am not a cat. “
This causes Mr. Phillips to look up, and finally the exchange attracts a smile and a laugh from him when Judge Ferguson replies, “I can see that.”
In the interview, Mr. Ponton, who represented the State of Texas in the case, said he was using his secretary’s computer and that she was “mortified” by the error.
He is not on Twitter and did not know it had become an international phenomenon until he started receiving calls from reporters just over an hour after the hearing ended, he said. The video was on the court’s YouTube page, and Judge Ferguson himself tweeted a link.
In all, the episode took less than a minute before he figured out how to turn off the filter, and they went back to business as usual.
“My older, less funny face appeared and we continued with the audience,” he said.