Appeals court judges do not generally assume the role of fact-finder, but at least one jurist on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit apparently wanted to investigate a particular claim in contention for himself.

A panel hearing Thursday in a Florida case involved a criminal suspect’s lawsuit against a sheriff’s deputy accused of pulling the handcuffed man’s pants down and exposing his privates to onlookers. One key question is what purportedly happened just prior to the incident.