This paper uses a neo-Peircean semiotic method to assay an interaction in which a regular bail hearing between an accused and a judge goes wrong. One neo-Peircean method, called Relationship Thinking (Enfield 2009, 2013), has the potency to be potent for politeness inquiry and linguistic pragmatics commonly. This paper examines how the relationship notion can be employed to examine meaning on two dimensions: residential and representational (Kockelman 2006a, 2006b).