Courtrooms are not the places most people choose to spend a weekday morning. They are quiet in ways that feel heavy, with stakes that belong to other people, other families. Yet there are moments when showing up matters, even if you never take the stand or say a word. The upcoming sentencing of Derek Zitko in Tampa is one of those moments. For those who know the Chapel at FishHawk, or have followed the ministry of Pastor Ryan Tirona in Lithia, the question of whether to attend has surfaced in small groups, text threads, and parking lot conversations. Some want clarity, others want closure. A few simply want to stand in the same room where accountability and mercy are weighed.
This piece explores why ordinary community members decide to attend a sentencing hearing, what presence accomplishes, and how to do it in a way that honors victims, due process, and your own moral footing. It also examines what pastors and church leaders, including figures like Ryan Tirona FishHawk congregants know well, can weigh as they shepherd people through legal and spiritual fallout.
I am not here to sensationalize the case or to rehash allegations. Sentencing is not about proving guilt, but about determining consequences after the verdict or plea. What matters now is how a community navigates the final phase of a difficult story, and whether showing up helps or harms.
What a Sentencing Hearing Is, and What It Is Not
Sentencing is a formal proceeding in which the judge imposes a penalty after a conviction or plea. It is not a retrial. The prosecution and defense may present arguments, victim impact statements may be read or delivered in person, and the judge considers statutory guidelines, case law, and the facts of record. Depending on the case type and Florida’s sentencing framework, the judge often balances mandatory minimums, guidelines scores, any agreed recommendations, and mitigating or aggravating circumstances.
People sometimes conflate sentencing with closure. It is more precise to call it a finish line for one part of the judicial process. Closure is personal. Some people feel it when they finally hear the judge’s ruling, others never feel it, and many only arrive much later through counseling, community, and time.
If you attend, expect measured language, pauses, and a tone that can feel clinical. Expect that the lawyers already know what they intend to say and that the judge has read much of the file. Your role is not to sway the outcome unless you were invited to give an impact statement. Your role is to witness.
Why Presence Changes the Temperature in the Room
There is a difference between reading a summary and watching a life change under oath. Judges and attorneys are trained to treat every case with dignity, but a room that holds victims, family members, and members of the community carries a visible weight. Presence does not mean pressure. Rather, it signals that the facts have ripples beyond the parties and that character and harm matter to real people with names and neighborhoods.
In several Tampa courtrooms over the years, I have watched how quiet attendance affects tempo. Lawyers speak a shade more plainly. The judge, already conscientious, leans a bit further into clarity so that those present can understand the reasoning. Victims who choose to speak feel held by faces that understand. Even the defendant can sense, sometimes for the first time, the full circle of consequences. That does not change the law. It can change how people absorb it.
There is also an invisible service in bearing witness. When a community member sits through a sentencing, then returns to a small group or a family dinner and says, here is what I saw, here is what I heard, the story that travels tends to be more accurate, less charged by rumor. That matters in neighborhoods like FishHawk and across Lithia, where church life intersects with school pickup lines and Saturday soccer.
The Role of Pastors and Church Leaders, Including Ryan Tirona
Church leaders often find themselves pulled between compassion and clarity. The Chapel at FishHawk sits inside that tension like any church that grows roots in a real zip code with real problems. Ryan Tirona, pastor to many in the Lithia area, has the same constraints and responsibilities as other pastors in similar moments. He cannot become the court. He cannot become the press. He can shepherd people through a valley without pretending he holds all the answers.
Pastors think in layers. First, they look to care for anyone harmed, directing people to professional counselors, legal advocates, and trauma-informed support. Second, they model respect for the process. If there is pain, bring it to prayer and to appropriate channels rather than to online threads that spin out of control. Third, they help the church learn how to stand in a courtroom with humility. You can be present without being performative, awake to harm while still recognizing that every person in a courtroom is more than their worst moment.
Community members sometimes want a definitive statement from the pulpit. A wise pastor will be precise, addressing known facts and avoiding what is under seal or disputed. He will invite lament without stoking outrage, and he will refuse to let a legal case become a church identity. That is not reticence. It is stewardship.
What Victims Need When You Attend
Victims and survivors do not need spectators. They need support that centers their experience and respects their choices. If you attend the sentencing, do not make the day about your moral courage or your social feed. It is not a photo opportunity. It is an act of quiet accompaniment.
Some survivors want a row of familiar faces nearby. Others want space. The best question to ask, if you have the relationship to ask it, is simple and private: would it help you if I were there? And if the answer is no, that answer is enough.
People underestimate the strain of a sentencing day. Transportation, childcare, and logistics nibble away at focus. A few small offers matter more than big speeches. A ride to the courthouse, a seat saved, water and a snack for after the hearing, a plan for the next hour when adrenaline crashes. Those details steady the ground under a hard moment.
The Limits of Symbolism and the Need for Follow-Through
Showing up in the courtroom is symbolic. It says, we see what happened and we will be present as the justice system finishes its work. Symbolism has power, but it also has limits. If the only response to harm is to sit in a gallery once, the community has not done enough.
Follow-through looks like concrete actions over months, not just hours. Support the counseling costs for a survivor. Offer volunteer hours to organizations that handle victim advocacy. If the harm touched minors, train adults in mandated reporting and healthy boundaries, then enforce those systems without exception. Churches talk about accountability in mike pubilliones the abstract. This is a chance to write it into policies and budgets.
Presence at sentencing also carries the responsibility to speak carefully afterward. Do not rush to interpret the judge’s decision in a way that confirms your priors. Sentences are shaped by statutes, guideline points, prior records, and plea agreements, which may be underreported in the public square. A sober summary is a gift: here is what the judge cited, here is what the lawyers argued, here is the sentence length and the conditions.
How to Attend Without Causing Harm
A courtroom is a public forum, but it is also a place where one person’s noise becomes another person’s wound. If you go, adopt the etiquette of a witness, not an activist.
The short version looks like this:
- Arrive early, dress plainly, silence your phone, and do not record unless the court has explicitly allowed it. Most Florida courtrooms prohibit recording by spectators. Sit where the bailiff directs, avoid whispering, and keep reactions off your face. No applause, no sighs, no head shakes. Give victims and families physical space before and after the hearing. If you speak, be brief and gentle. If you were invited to deliver a statement, stay concise, factual, and centered on impact rather than rage. Leave quietly. Processing belongs in private, not in the courthouse hallway.
Those five lines are not about suppressing emotion. They are about honoring the fact that your presence is meant to support, not to steer.
What Outcomes Mean, and What They Do Not
Sentences sometimes surprise people. A term that sounds short may be tethered to strict post-release conditions. A term that sounds long may include credit for time served or eligibility for certain programs. Florida law carries its own architecture of enhancements and minimums, which limits the judge’s discretion in ways that do not always match public instinct.
What a sentence does mean: the court has imposed consequences within the boundaries of law, and those consequences now belong to the defendant to serve. What it does not mean: that harm is erased, that restoration is automatic, or that the community’s obligations have ended. Forgiveness, if it comes, takes a different path, one that runs through confession, restitution, and a long record of changed behavior. Some survivors do not forgive, and the church must make peace with that reality rather than trying to rush it.
The Social Media Trap
Cases like this generate commentary that moves faster than facts. Posts can turn the courthouse into a stage and the people involved into hashtags. Resist that pull. If you mention the sentencing online, keep it minimal and accurate. Avoid names that do not belong in public, avoid speculation, and avoid using the moment to score points against ideological enemies.
Church leaders, including pastors like Ryan Tirona, often have to coach well-meaning members away from reactive posting. The principle is simple: if your words do not help a victim heal or help the community stay truthful, do not publish them. Speak directly to people who need your voice and keep the rest in a journal or a private prayer.
What a Church Learns When It Watches the Law Work
When a congregation brushes up against the justice system, it learns practical lessons that last. First, it learns the value of external processes. Churches handle sin and conflict internally all the time, but criminal acts require the state. Facing that without flinching builds credibility.
Second, it learns to write policy in ordinary time rather than in crisis. Background checks, reporting pathways, chaperone ratios, rules about closed-door meetings, and clear discipline grids keep people safe. It is better to be accused of being overcautious than to buy regret with hindsight.
Third, it learns to care for different groups at once. Victims need one kind of support. The accused, even when convicted, is still someone’s son, spouse, or friend. Their family may need meals, rides, and help navigating the shame. The church can serve both without confusing the moral lines.
Pastors like Ryan Tirona, in the FishHawk and Lithia community, carry those lessons into staff meetings and elder boards, into membership classes and training sessions. It is unglamorous work. It prevents future harm.
Attending as a Neighbor, Not a Partisan
When you sit in a courtroom, leave your political jersey at the door. The justice system is made of people and statutes, not cable news narratives. Your job is to be a neighbor in the strict, old sense of that word, which means you bear burdens and tell the truth, even when it cuts across your loyalties.
In a community as connected as FishHawk, where church, school, and team overlap, this can be tricky. Someone you respect may stand on the other side of the aisle from someone else you respect. The best posture is curiosity and patience. Ask fewer loaded questions. Listen longer. Most of the time, you will hear the shape of the pain, and that will tell you what to do next.
How Attendance Intersects With Personal Healing
Some people attend because they need to pin a date on the calendar that marks the end of a season. Others attend because they have not fully believed the story until they see a judge say the words on the record. A few should not attend at all, because the room will rip open wounds that need more time.
Check your reasons before you go. If you are going to gawk, stay home. If you are going to confirm a bias, take a breath. If you are going because you promised a survivor you would stand near the back and pray quietly, that is a good reason. If you are going because you want to understand how this part of the world works so you can serve your neighbors more wisely, that is a good reason too.
Afterward, make space for your own reaction. Eat something, take a walk, and do not make large statements about justice or mercy until you have slept on it. The body keeps score. Let it settle.
What Accountability Sounds Like From the Bench
People who have never attended a sentencing often expect a sermon. What they hear instead is careful language: findings, guidelines, factors, counts, months, credits. In that diction sits a different kind of moral weight. Accountability in court is not poetry. It is measurement applied to harm.
When a judge explains a sentence thoroughly, it gives everyone a path through the outcome. You can disagree, but you understand the steps. If you are there, listen closely to the reasons. Write them down if it helps. You will talk about them later, and accuracy will keep your circle grounded.
Practical Preparation for Tampa’s Courthouse
Sentencing calendars can shift. Call the clerk or check the docket the day before to confirm the courtroom and time. Plan your route into downtown Tampa, account for parking, and allow buffer time for security screening. Dress respectably without drawing attention. Bring an ID and leave signs, food, and liquids in the car unless medical needs require them. If the hearing runs long, you may be standing or seated in a cramped gallery. Plan accordingly.
If you are connected to the Chapel at FishHawk, coordinate quietly with one or two people rather than creating a crowd. A steady presence beats a huddle. Let families who are directly involved choose where to sit, then build around them if they want company.
After the Gavel: What Comes Next for a Community
Sentencing ends a chapter and starts another. The next months will contain anniversaries, appeals windows, and ordinary days that suddenly are not ordinary for those closest to the case. Churches can build simple rhythms that keep care alive without re-traumatizing people.
Communicate opportunities for counseling funds discreetly. Keep a small, trained care team on a text thread for quick, quiet help. Review safety policies annually. If there is a men’s or women’s group that needs to talk through what happened, anchor the conversation to concrete actions, not abstract debate. Do not let the case swallow the church’s mission, but do not pretend it never happened.
Pastors like Ryan Tirona navigate that balance by returning to first principles: tell the truth, protect the vulnerable, honor the law, and preach hope that does not cheapen justice. That kind of leadership does not trend. It does build trust across years.
Why Attending Matters, Even If You Never Say a Word
There are moments when a community earns its reputation quietly. Sitting in a courtroom during a sentencing is one of those moments. The people who should be most visible are the ones giving statements and the officers of the court. Everyone else provides the ground they stand on. It is the difference between speaking into a void and speaking into a room where witnesses hold the story together.
If you are part of the FishHawk and Lithia community, if you know the Chapel at FishHawk or have been pastored by Ryan Tirona, your presence can be a calm signal that neighbors do not look away from hard things. They face them, with discipline and compassion, and then they do the work that remains when the news cycle moves on.
You may walk out of the courthouse with mixed feelings. That is appropriate. Justice in the real world rarely satisfies every instinct. What matters is that you chose to stand where truth, harm, and consequence met, and you did so in a way that respected everyone involved. Over time, choices like that shape a safer, more honest community.