Monday, July 07, 2008

Court

I now have the honor of being my office representative in court on Mondays. Yeah me (can you sense my sarcasm here?). It is interesting to listen to the cases and laugh at the stupidity of some of these people.

I had a person this morning convicted of jacklighting (spotlighting a deer from his truck while in possession of a gun). When the judge asked him if he had any questions, the offender simply asked, "When do I get my muzzle loader back?"

It also amazes me how many people fail to show up, even for pre-trial hearings. For pre-trial, you walk in, are told your official court date, and you leave. Why not show up for that? That is the easy part! Instead of showing up, they decide to skip and then are amazed when they are picked up with a warrant for contempt of court. Duh!

The attire of the people cracks me up too. The inmates coming from jail have no choice. They wear their lovely bright orange jump suits and their matching bracelets and anklets that come with a beautiful pad lock. But I saw a man come before the judge in a wife beater tank top (come to think of it, he was there for domestic battery...hmmm), cut off blue jean shorts, and flip flops. Come on now! At least put on a real shirt!

It's also amazing the things I get called in court. I had some woman call me a b*&$% because I had a cell phone. If you come in the front door, you are not allowed to have a cell phone. Being a county employee I use the employee entrance and am allowed to carry my phones. I use it to text message with my office about cases and to answer questions. I calmly turned around and flashed her my badge. She just growled at me. Growled. How mature is that. I just laughed at her. My co-worker was with me that day and he loudly muttered, "Maybe one day if and when you grow up you can work for the county and bring your cell phone into the courtroom too." Cracked me up. Apparently the woman's facial expressions cracked up the probation officer and the woman so kindly moved to the other side of the courtroom.

Like usual it is 1:20 and court has yet to begin. We were scheduled to start at 1 so I promptly arrived at 12:50...you think I would learn, nothing is ever done on time around here. So here I sit, in the third floor of the court house mindlessly looking at the four inmates in their lovely jumpsuits wishing I hadn't eaten Taco Bell for lunch.

No comments: