Sometimes there are clear signs that one needs a vacation from work.  Exhaustion sets in or it becomes impossible to concentrate on the tasks at hand.  Or, anger that’s been suppressed for far too long finally bubbles to the surface and you hit a co-worker over the head with a can of Lysol.  Of course, some time away is recommended before it reaches this point.Attorney Lindsey Scott, 63, of Louisville, Kentucky, has been arrested for allegedly attacking a fellow attorney with a Lysol container in a courthouse conference room.  Scott was arrested on the spot after the encounter and ultimately charged with second-degree assault for hitting James “J.R.” Moore over the head with the can.  The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office reported Scott attacked Moore after an altercation had occurred just prior to the attack, but Moore denied on social media that there was a fight.“Some sort of altercation developed,” said Lt. Col. Carl Yates.  He did not know what prompted it.  Surveillance video taken from outside the room shows blood streaked across the floor.

Lysol; image courtesy of Trending Topics 2019, via Flickr, CC BY-2.0, no changes made.

Yet Moore wrote on Facebook, “I was totally blindsided while peacefully eating breakfast.  First thing I felt was a thud.  Just a scalp wound.  My friends need not be concerned. All concerns should be for my perpetrator. Something is apparently very wrong in his life. He is a good man.”  He went to the hospital for treatment of his injuries alongside Scott, who had complained of chest pains.Moore received about 12 staples on the top of his head.  The Facebook post included pictures of the aftermath, including a shot of the wounds.Colleagues said both Scott and Moore are excellent lawyers and great to work with.  They said Scott became an attorney after he was charged and eventually acquitted in the military justice system.  For years, he was in and out of the courtroom appealing a sexual assault conviction.In 1983, as a Marine Corps corporal, Scott had been accused of the rape and attempted homicide of the wife of a fellow Marine in 1983.  He was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison.  However, his first conviction in the military court was overturned due to ineffective assistance of counsel, and he was acquitted during a retrial.After Scott’s conviction during the first go-round, his family, friends, and other supporters who followed the case, contended that he had been convicted because he was black, and the victim was white.  The case would garner national attention with civil rights groups outraged that he has been a victim of a broken criminal justice system.  A television movie eventually aired in 1999, titled “Dangerous Evidence: The Lori Jackson Story,’’ which featuring his civil rights attorney.The movie’s plot reads, “African-American Marine Corporal Lindsay Scott (Richard Yearwood) is charged with raping another Marine’s wife, a white woman, near the Quantico military base in Virginia. Civil rights activist Lori Jackson (Lynn Whitfield), who has no formal legal training, takes on the case. After Scott is convicted – despite a lack of evidence – Jackson refuses to give up, instead using the power of the media to fight the considerable forces of the military justice system and seek freedom for Scott.”

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