9/15/04

Well, its been an interesting couple of days.  I have tomorrow off of work, as I will be celebrating Rosh Hoshannah--please don't call, I'll be in the middle of introspection.  What will make the day particularly relaxing is the knowledge that my Friday is looking like a complete pain in the ass, as I will be covering someone else's courtroom---UGH!  Here I was, thinking that I had a nice Friday where I would be finishing up some paperwork of mine, and then maybe leaving an hour or two early to get a jumpstart on the weekend.....but noooooooo!
And what makes it worse is, I had a double docket today that I had to do.  Arraignments in the morning, trial docket in the afternoon.  Not much...only about 180 to 190 cases.  UGH.  We had the usual collection of complete morons present for the arraignments, including my favorite story of the day......a guy comes up, charged with possession of (increase the volume in your voice here) MARIJUANA.  So the judge asks the guy if he's ever been arrested before, he says no...and then she asks the state attorney for priors against the defendant.  The prosecutor says that he has a possesion of marijuana charge from 2003 that he paid court costs on.
Here's an approximate transcript of what happened next:
"Uh, did you forget about that other case....LAST YEAR?"  The judge says.
"Oh, uh....yeah, now that you mention it."
"You know that you can lose your license for 2 years for a conviction on this?"
"Say what?"
"Do you need your license for work?"
"Hell yeah, I got 3 jobs."
"Okay, can you do some probation and stay off the pot?"
"Well, yeah...I mean, I ain't addicted to the motherfucker."

Sitcoms have nothing on what I see in court everyday.

Last night Kellie started her confirmation classes.  Andy was in the class at our church for a year and couldn't tell me the name of one kid in his class when we went for the luncheon.  Kim predicted that Kellie will not only know the name of every kid in the class by week # 3, but be friends with at least half of them.

The other thing from court today that I forgot to mention was the prostitute.  Yep, she comes walking up to the front of the courtroom and the judge asks her how she wants to plead.
"Judge, I'd like to plead no contest, but I'd like you to know that I'm a student and a taxpayer."
"Well, that's nice....you pay taxes."
"Yes I do."
"You pay taxes on your earnings as a prostitute?"
"Yes, they take taxes out every paycheck."
"You pay taxes on an illegal activity?"

I'm sure her pimp was putting the tax money into a nice mutual fund.

Later,
jeff