At the Straight Pride Parade in Boston last week, the world came face-to-face with the power of hundreds of fragile male egos and the world laughed hysterically. But it turns out the most pathetic man in Boston wasn’t marching that day. Instead, Boston Municipal Court Judge Richard Sinnott was waiting at the finish line to take up the mantle of saddest man-child in town.

As one might expect of an explicitly fascist trolling event like the Straight Pride Parade, especially when held in Boston — a town that despite harboring more than its fair share of the lowest common denominator of inbred racists is generally pretty cosmopolitan — the affair brought out a number of protestors. The Boston Police — see above about the lowest common denominator — met these folks with riot gear and pepper spray as one does. While there probably was some jackhole in the crowds actually causing trouble, most of the protestors the cops harassed and locked up were just ordinary folks exercising their free speech rights — something District Attorney Rachel Rollins recognized when she ordered the charges dropped for over 30 of the protestors.

That’s when Judge Sinnott decided he would arraign the protestors anyway even though the government wasn’t prosecuting them.

This is, of course, entirely illegal. But Judge Sinnott’s tantrum didn’t end there! When Susan Church, the defense attorney representing a number of the protestors pointed out that, you know, there are centuries of precedent for this whole “rule of law” thing, Judge Sinnott’s personal sense of inadequacy had her handcuffed and hauled away for contempt of court. The Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers called for an immediate investigation of this incident.

DA Rollins filed an emergency petition focused on one of the defendants who was not only arraigned without a prosecutor’s blessing, but had bail set at multiples of the maximum fine for the alleged offenses just to make a scene. This sets up what’s going to be one of the most epic appellate benchslappings in quite some time.

Imagine the glee of some appellate clerk getting ready to tee up this opinion — dripping with references to all the Star Chamber and Revolutionary War iconography that Massachusetts has traded upon for the last 250 years. How many times will they work in a Magna Carta reference?

The credibility of the Massachusetts state courts is on the line.

Boston’s DA wants to dismiss charges against some ‘Straight Pride Parade’ protesters. But a judge won’t let her [CNN]

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.