In court in San Diego women are not permitted to where stiletto heels to court. This is due to an incident when one lawyer took her shoe off, ripped off the heal, revealing a sharpened metal spike, and proceeded to attack the opposing console with it. This was not premeditated, apparently many high heal shoes have metal spike in the heal for support. The spikes are sharpened to make it easier to insert the heal on during manufacturing. This happened in South Bay court, if memory serves.