Smack down

She was found guilty.

"So why is the title of this post 'Smack down', Yee?"

Because the jury took 2 1/2 hours to decide she wasn't guilty. Apparently after the rather disastrous warm-up, she did quite well during the testimony and closing. It helped that the cop was apparently quite the jerk and made the defendant's conduct not so bad. Good for her.

But the REAL smack down was given by the judge. During sentencing, the ADA recommended 60 days in jail, 90 on probation, an $800 fine and a letter of apology to the officer. The charge was (I don't think I said this in my last post) interference with a public servant. Basically she got in the cop's face. So you can imagine the look we all gave to the ADA when he recommended this sentence. The defendant simply asked for a higher fine and less jail time. It was the only time she looked like she was going to cry.

The judge looked at the defendant, looked at the ADA and laid out her sentence. Time already served (2 days in jail) and a $1 fine plus court costs.

I would have laughed my ass off if I hadn't been so shocked. And I think the ADA would have fallen over if he hadn't frozen stiff. The public defender assisting the defendant was the only one that let out a big grin.

Pro Se

This morning I came into court fully expecting to drift off and away to another court, perhaps a felony court on the 5th floor, to find something interesting to watch. While I love watching everything in misdemeanor court, I just needed something different than my 100th jail chain case for a DWI, my 200th plea for a DWI or 10th jury selection for a DWI.

Lo and behold, the "something different" came to me - a pro se case going to jury trial. For the non-law students in the crowd, that means the defendant is defending him or herself. Now, you might be thinking, "Hey, that's their right. How dare you take such amusement in that? That's their constitutional right!"

And yes, yes it is. I don't debate that. That Constitution of ours, it's a damn good bit of writing. That said, if you are ever in court do NOT defend yourself. If you don't have money for paying a lawyer, the court provides one for you, for FREE. And while I can't speak to many other courts, the public defenders I know are excellent lawyers committed to getting their indigent clients the best of a crappy situation.

There are precious few defendants who have a honest-to-goodness valid reason for passing up on a free lawyer or the opportunity to hire their own. I can't think of any of those reasons at the moment, but I'm sure they're out there.* But if you're not one of those few, take that lawyer and thank heaven we have a system that provides everyone who wants it with counsel.

Because really, this morning when I heard there was a pro se case going to trial, I was pleased. I've seen a few of these types of defendants and they are often real characters. I thought that I'd come home and say something like, "Hey, you would never believe what this pro se defendant did... Isn't that funny in an endearing way? Luckily the public defender who was assisting her corrected her and everything worked out and she got a fair trial."

But it wasn't funny in an endearing way. It was painful and struck up motherly instincts in me that I had long thought were dead. I just wanted to take the defendant out for soup, crackers and a big mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows (ignoring the fact that it's June) and tell her that it would be all okay. Even though I have a sneaking suspicion it wouldn't be.

The jury panel didn't understand her questions during voir dire, the state made awkward objections to things that the judge had already told her she couldn't say, and her opening statement was senseless rambling compared to the ADA's short and concise statement. By the end of the morning, the jury was already looking at her like she was insane. I'm undecided whether it made it more painful that she seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that she was alienating the 6 people that would decide her fate.

I'll tell you tomorrow what that fate is. But I think we all know already.

* Maybe that guy that Prof Crim Law ended up defending at the 5th Circuit, whose original lawyer had screwed him over so badly both monetarily and legally that he was teaching himself the law for the appeal. He won that appeal based on his own appellate brief.

I'm Not As Eloquent As AlicoDreams

About 7 1/2 years ago, I was in 10th grade and had Ms. Newbold for English. She was a pretty bad teacher with the wardrobe of a 15 year old. So we ignored her and did what we wanted to do during her class. (This repeated in 11th grade with Mrs. Green, who was a better teacher but not a strong enough force against 35 teenagers in the last class period of the day. I'm surprised I know what a book is.) Anyway, I had this class with some friends including a girl named Vicki. She introduced me to the guy who sat behind her, a towering Asian guy who I'd never heard speak before.

My immediate thought was, "He's kind of scary." My second thought was, "This guy must be the best poker player in the world. He's inscrutable."

Subsequent meetings went better. We started dating in 12th grade. Our friends took bets on how long we'd last. None of them won.

Years later, Jon is still a towering Asian who is very quiet and not easily angered or amused. He is still a good poker player and can even bluff me on rare occasions. But usually he doesn't. Here's to my husband of 1 year (minus a day), who still lets me win.

Oh, the Things I've Seen!

It's been an interesting few days. At state court, I've met my first meth addict, saw a guy try to convince entire court's staff that he could defend himself in a marijuana possession case, helped another guy NOT get his bond forfeited and watched my judge deliver a few choice words to an unprepared ADA for the first setting of a 2005 case. At the federal public defender's office, I've finally gotten my federal ID, watched a bank robber plead guilty after he ripped off a bank to pay off the furniture he bought for his apartment, visited the trailer that this article refers to, and met a "reformed" cocaine dealer. (That was in quotes for a reason, yes, but I'm not completely convinced he isn't reformed either. It was a short meeting.)

I've also been sitting around at both jobs watching my billionth DWI plea or reading my billionth case file about the latest drug dealer the DEA caught because the dealer was being (shock!) a moron. But, all in all, they're good jobs. Now only if I could get my parking pass for the courthouse...

Oh! And before I forget, let's have a little talk about MANNERS, shall we? You may or may not know me, but you should pretty much assume that everyone you meet is happy in their life. If you insult any major portion of that life, be prepared to be hated. Even if it's a suppressed, secret hatred. If you're incredibly rude to someone in the first few minutes of their acquaintance, you can bet that you've burned that bridge even before you had a blueprint. An illustration (yes, this happened to me yesterday):

Ann (the court coordinator): Oh, Defense Lawyer, have you met Sarah? She's the judge's intern for a few weeks.
Defense Lawyer: Hi! Nice to meet you. Are you a law student?
Me: Yeah, I just finished my first year.
DL: At SMU?
Me: No, Baylor.
DL: Ah, Baylor... where they teach you to pass the bar, but not how to be an attorney.
Me: *shocked, momentary stare* Um... well, we did have 100% pass rate on the February bar.
DL: *continuing to be happy and such, either trying to skate past his horrible insult 2 seconds after meeting me or being truly so stupid that he didn't realize that it was an insult* Yeah, I read about that!

I narrowly avoided asking him if he wanted to critique my appearance while he was at it. Obviously, the man had no boundaries.

Mini-Update

1. There was a judge wondering where I was. I am now in the correct place, although I'm doing about as little as I was before.

2. My parents aren't moving to Little Rock! I have nothing against Arkansas (probably because I've never been there) but I am so very, very pleased about this.

First Day of My Summer Job(s)

Instead of telling you exactly what happened today, I'm going to post my thoughts as I moved through the day. In the morning, I was at the Frank Crowley Court in Dallas for my internship with Judge King. In the afternoon, I was at the Federal Public Defender's Office.

7:00 am: "I woke up 2 hours before I'm supposed to be downtown. I'm going to be late."

8:45 am: "Yeah... definitely late. And damn it, I hate Industrial Boulevard. What is he DOING? God, that's creepy."

9:20 am: "I have no idea where I'm supposed to be. This is supposed to be a judicial internship, so where's the judge? Why is no one in the DA's workroom?"

9:25 am: "There are too many damn people in here!"

10:00 am: "I'm shocked anything ever gets done in this system. Where is that file? Why are the only ones I'm looking for the only ones that are missing? Is this really how plea agreements are done? This is absolute chaos."

11:00 am: "She is way too excited about having an intern. And why didn't she know I was coming in the first place? Am I even in the right place?"

11:50 am: "Really people, am I in the right place? Is there a judge wondering where her new intern is?"

12:05 pm: "Well, at least I have plenty of time to make it 2 blocks to my next job."

12:45 pm: "I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO PARK! I HATE DOWNTOWN!"

1:10 pm: "Well, at least my new boss is nice enough to lend me $3.50 for parking only minutes after meeting me because I only had $1.50 in cash."

2:30 pm: "Fingerprinting. Going on the list of messiest activities possible."

3:00 pm: "Fourth computer and it still doesn't work. Ah, government funding. At least it isn't DOS like the court house."

4:00 pm: "Awesome. Fraud and bribery. Oh! And public nudity!"

5:00 pm: "No brain work."

So it wasn't the best of first days. But I've had worse first days too. All in all, I think that the court internship will be a lot of busy work, but the sort of busy work that actually helps the DAs, which is nice. And I'm going to be helping the public defender's office do research and draft motions and suchlike, so that'll be nice too. Everyone was nice (even though none of the DAs in the morning knew who I was - I also got approached by several defense lawyers to sign off on plea agreements). It was exhausting, but by the end of the week, I'll be used to working again. How quickly I lose tolerance for 8 hour days!

For Music Geeks

My friend - a cellist - sent me this. As a violinist, I laugh at cellists' plight with Pachelbel. What can I say? I'm a mean person, even in the classical music world. Anyway, it's a clever bit and amusing, even for those that can't sing Pachelbel in their sleep.