10/26/04--Attorney's behaving badly

One thing I love about working in misdemeanor court is that you get to watch young attorneys, whether they work for the state or the defense, get to earn their stripes in court.  The stuff they do is usually DUI or something like that, and after they get some experience its up to felonies and the really serious cases.  However, sometimes you get an attorney who starts to think that maybe their a little bit better than they really are.  Take yesterday for example:
We had this defendant, who quite honestly was a really cocky S.O.B.  He had not one, not two, but THREE charges of theft against.  And he was stealing the same shit everytime!  Nothing like learning your lesson, right?  Well, he's got a really good defense attorney who's in the trenches battling away for his client, like he's supposed to do, and he's trying to convince our young state attorney (prosecutor, D.A., etc) to give his client a reasonable plea offer so they can avoid having to go to trial.  Well, the prosecutor is sticking to his guns, citing the fact that the defendant had like 14 prior arrests (not all for theft mind you) and that he had never been CONVICTED (key word there) of any of them.  This time, he wanted a conviction.  Its like the scene from the movie STRIPES with Bill Murray & Harold Ramis in the recruiting office before they join the army.
"You boys ever been convicted of any crimes?"
"Convicted?  No....uh....never CONVICTED."
Cause you see, what the key word was is CONVICTED.  Once you get that conviction on your record, its not EVER going away.  All those times before the conviction was "withheld", which basically means the case is resolved without a finding of guilt.  Sometimes you just pay court costs, maybe do a little probation, but the stigma of being CONVICTED is something that just about everyone tries to avoid. 
So, back to our little courtroom drama.  Finally the state attorney makes his final offer.  He agrees to drop one of the three cases if the guy will take a conviction on the other two cases.  Reasonable enough, thinks myself, the clerk with the vast almost 19 years of courtroom experience.  (ahem)  Still, the defense attorney goes to the judge and asks if there is anything that can be done to "sweeten the deal".  Now the judge had already said that she thought the guy didn't deserve to not be convicted, so I'm thinking there's NO chance whatsoever its going to happen.  However, part of a judge's job is to move along their cases, and I'm sure my judge was thinking about how nice it would be to get rid of three potential jury trials with one plea of no contest.  So she offers to convict the guy on one of the three cases and have him pay court costs on the other two.  Now personally, I didn't think she should've done that, I woulda stuck it to the guy based on his priors, but I understood her thinking.  Well here's where it gets good.  The prosecutor just starts to have a tantrum.  He walks over to his desk with the files and SLAMS them down.
Then as the judge is reading the different sentences he starts mumbling under his breath about how "this is bullshit" and yada yada. Then, as the judge is finishing up all the pleadings he gets up and storms out of the courtroom, complete with the slamming open of the courtroom door.  I don't know if the judge even realized what was happening, because she was busy writing something on her computer while it was all going on.  The bottom line is, he was really unprofessional.
So this morning I call him over.  I tell him, whether you agreed with what the judge's decision was or not--and personally I didn't either--that he was unprofessional in storming off and throwing a tantrum.  I told him that he should apologize for the way he acted.
I may as well have told him whistle Dixie.  He tells me that he has no intention of doing that, because she was wrong, etc etc and that he's not going to be in the courtroom much longer and that he was thinking about going to the newspaper and having them sit in on one of her court sessions and.....well, you get the idea.
I realized I was wasting my breath.  My point was, that even if you disagreed with her decision, that he should respect her position and role.  He doesn't have to like her, but he should at least give her the respect she deserves.  Instead, he came close to throwing another tantrum.  Excuse me for trying to offer a little constructive criticism based on my 19 years in the courtroom.  But the way I figured it, I had nothing to offer someone who appears to know everything.  And just to make it even more perfect, 5 minutes later he was making chit-chat with the judge about how much he sees her case count going down.  I almost threw up.  What a two-faced bastard.  Bad mouthing her one minute,then kissing her ass the next.

Speaking of court cases, what in God's name was former chanel 7 weatherman Bill Kamal thinking??  For those of you not familar, local weatherman Kamal---or as they call him on the radio these days, "Come one, come all"---was nailed in a federal sting for child predators.  Apparently Bill was cruising the web looking for younger teenage boys for a "discreet--VERY DISCREET relationship".  I mean to tell you, this guy is DONE.  I mean, besides being a scumbag, he's also a big dumbass for doing it.  I had the guy in my courtroom twice for DUI related offenses, and as a matter of fact, the judge terminated his probation early about 2 months ago because he had fulfilled all of his conditions and appeared to be making progress towards facing his alchoholism.  When he got popped for the new federal charges, our old prosecutor (Lil Ms "My Husband's A Doctor") comes into the courtroom crowing like a rooster about how the judge shouldn't have let him off probation early because now we could've violated his probation.  I told her....guess what?  The guy is facing life in prison on FEDERAL charges.  I'm going to take a wild guess that a fucking DUI charge isn't weighing really heavy on his mind.  Of course, you watch....that SOB is going to get up in front of a federal judge and blame everything on his alcohol problem.  I just know it.

SPORTS ALERT SPORTS ALERT
Big doings here locally as the Florida Gators shitcanned their head coach, Ron "Why the fuck was I hired anyway?" Zook.  All the local Gator fans are of course praying to whatever God they worship that Steve Spurrier will come back to Gainesville riding on his fiery white steed.  Wouldn't surprise me in the least, although....I gotta wonder why he would do it.  Could he possibly live up to the standards that he set the last time he was there?  Its a hell of a thing to compete against yourself.  Or your own past.  Of course, if Spurrier doesn't take it...then suddenly the name Urban Meyer from Utah starts getting bandied about, and any sensible Notre Dame fan wouldn't want that to happen.  You see, after this weekends DISASTER vs. Boston College (UGH!  I can't even stand to think about it) rumblings have begun yet again as to the stability of Ty Willingham's position.  Now, to be perfectly candid (and why wouldn't I be, dear reader) I don't think the the administration has the balls to fire the guy (not that he's undeserving mind you)....first you would have the whole "black coach" thing that would be blown WAY, WAY out of proportion (Yes, that means you Michael Wilbon of ESPN) and then the whole "5 year" thing--Bob Davie got 5 years, Gerry Faust got 5 years....so I figure at the very least he'll get through next season, but maybe have to ax some of his assistants, particularly on offense.

Time for another DVD selection, continuing with our alphabetical review....we're now up to 2000's AMERICAN BEAUTY by director Sam Mendes.  I tried to think of what movie this film reminded me of, and I finally came up with it.  Its almost an updated retelling of 1979's KRAMER VS. KRAMER.  Both films deal with the disinigration of a modern marriage, although Kvs K dealt more with the aftermath, while A.B. shows things falling apart right before your very eyes.  Let me start with the obvious.  This is a great film.  If my personal top 10 list was actually a top 15, it would most likely be on it---that's how much I like this movie.  There are so many subtle things that end up meaning so much.  Misunderstandings, infidelity (real and imagined), that "weird kid" you knew in high school (and trust me--EVERY school had one)...its all here.  The movie quite deservingly swept the major awards on Oscar night.  Kevin Spacey is just...THE MAN...in this role.  What makes him so great is that he's enough of a chameleon to not have himself pigeonholed by one performance.  He's not just Keyser Souze.  He's not just Lester Burnham.  He's not just Jack Vincennes.  He's all of those guys, each a vastly different person and character--and he nailed every one of them.  What a performance here.  Annette Bening is every bit his equal as the housewife slowly going insane by her own inertia, who finds herself quite willing drawn into an affair with the hysterical Peter Gallagher.
Also providing stellar support are Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari (who will never be better than here), Thora Birch, Allison Janney & Chris Cooper.  The cast is perfect.
Its a film about taking the time to find the beauty in the smallest of things, like the way a leaf blows....or the way a great movie strikes you...just right.  *****

Later,
Jeff