The Justice Department is prosecuting a woman who laughed during a Senate hearing to confirm Jeff Sessions as attorney general. I can sympathize with her somewhat absurd plight, because I was once tossed out of the press box in the Supreme Court for laughing at the wrong time.

Desiree Fairooz, a librarian in Arlington, Va., and a Code Pink activist, guffawed when Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) asserted that Sessions's record for "treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented." She was speedily arrested by a U.S. Capitol police officer. Justice Department lawyers reportedly charged Fairooz with "disorderly and disruptive conduct" intended to "impede, disrupt, and disturb the orderly conduct" of congressional proceedings.

According to the HuffPost, laughter occurred at other times during the hearing — especially when Sessions made a joke about his marriage. But laughing with the nominee did not pose a grave threat to the dignity of congressional proceedings.