Kevin Grasha

kgrasha@enquirer.com

The smell of marijuana was overwhelming Thursday in Hamilton County Municipal Judge Bernie Bouchard’s courtroom.

Smack-you-in-the-face overwhelming, according to people who were there.

So, Bouchard asked the room filled with defendants and their attorneys who it belonged to. He threatened to call for a drug-sniffing dog. He said there would be significant jail time if deputies had to search for it.

“So, who has the marijuana?” Bouchard asked.

Darius Dabney, a 23-year-old East Westwood man in court for a probation violation in a disorderly conduct case, admitted it was his.

He’d stashed two clear, plastic bags filled with marijuana down the front of his pants.

The marijuana weighed 1.5 ounces, officials said.

Bouchard – who over the last two decades has served as a prosecutor, magistrate and judge – said in an interview he’d never seen anything like it in a courtroom.

“I thought there’d be a little baggie of marijuana. I didn’t realize it was going to be two big sacks of it,” he said.

In court, Dabney offered a confusing explanation about why he had the pot.

"I forgot it in my car, sir," he said, according to a transcript.

"Say what?" Bouchard said.

"I don't know, sir."

Dabney also said he’d smoked marijuana around 9 a.m., before entering the courthouse.

He told Bouchard he had just served jail time for a probation violation in a different case.

For testing positive for marijuana.

In that 2014 case, he was convicted of complicity, a felony, for helping an inmate escape from the Hamilton County jail and initially sentenced to probation. Court records show he was ordered in December to serve five months in jail because of the probation violation.

“I just got out,” Dabney said. “So I smoked this morning.”

His attorney, James Moore, explained: “What happened was, he was locked up…and just recently got out.”

“And celebrated,” Bouchard said.

“Evidently so,” Moore said.

Bouchard found Dabney in contempt of court for showing up apparently high and sentenced him to one day in jail.

“It took a little coaxing, but you did come clean,” Bouchard told him, according to the transcript. “But that’s better than you getting charged with a felony for bringing drugs into the jail… So I hope that you at least learned from this and can be honest in the future.”

Dabney is expected to plead guilty Friday for violating his probation in the disorderly conduct case. Records say he hasn't reported to the probation office, hasn't paid fines, and hasn't attended or completed drug treatment.