1/25/05--More tales of the courthouse---volume 38

So believe it or not, every day in a courtroom isn't an episode of Law & Order.  It gets flatout boring believe it or not.  That's, of course, after the 1000th trial for the same charge, with the same essential fact pattern.  (I'm yawning just thinking about it).  So every once in a great while, you hear stories involving....hmm....ya know, someone getting a tad drowsy in court.  There was the time that a clerk named Joel drifted off during trial, only to wake up--um, if you could call it that---when he fell over backwards in his chair.  I mean, as in ass over teakettle all the way to the floor with a huge noise.  Gee, I'm sure that wasn't just a tad embarassing.  Then there was my boy Dennis who happened to nod off right when two supervisors walked into the courtroom--and remained that way during the entire ten minutes that they sat there.
But, without question the ultimate story along these lines was the story of Julie, a former clerk, who during a rather long trial happened to doze off.  She awoke with a bit of a start, and then rather carefully looked around to see if anyone had noticed her brief nap.  Well, she looked at the judge and he didn't appear to have noticed.
She checked the attornies and neither one was looking in her direction.  Okay there.
She then looked over towards the witness stand and that's when.....WHOOPS!....she noticed there was a NEW WITNESS on the stand.

Then there was the story of the ultimate psychotic episode in clerks history.  It involved two clerks, one named Debbie & the other named John.  Now, Debbie was what you might call....hmmm....a bit of a "chatty" gal.  The only thing that kept her from expressing a viewpoint--I mean ANY sort of viewpoint--was a case of larangytis.  John was the proverbial quiet type.  A tall man from the state of Massachusetts, John had announced a few days earlier that he would be leaving the office and had given his two weeks notice.  Well, apparently John had a few things festering deep within his subconscious that just felt the need to come forth.
So Debbie is at her desk in a mainly empty office, yacking her brains out (per usual)
when John got up from his desk and walked over towards her.
He politely asked Debbie if he could speak to her.  She turned to him and he said:

"I just wanted to know if I could ask you to do me a small favor."
"Yes?"
"I was wondering.......if you......COULD (growing louder)......SHUT (louder)....THE (still louder).......FUCK (screaming).....UP! (loudest of all)

Now, at this point, John quietly turns around and walks back to his desk as Debbie sits there with her mouth wide open.  It was shortly after this that the management team asked John to join them in the office and asked him if maybe it wouldn't be a good idea for him to forgo his two week notice and just go ahead and resign right then and there.  And John left.......never to be heard from again.  But for almost 6 mos afterwards, we used to torment Debbie by telling her....
"Hey, I just saw John in the stairwell.  Did he run into you yet?"

Later,
Jeff