Baited Breath and More in BookThree: Flight Log 2016

I haven’t felt like this since I was a Sophomore in High School waiting to see if I had made The Baker’s Dozen Elite Acting Troupe. The anticipation; the desperate need for it to be good news; the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I already know the answer is no… that’s where I am this morning. Off to deal with the bloody magistrate!

Back at 3:30 p.m. Which means… magistrate court took a grand total of 6.5 Hours. Again… shoot me. When I worked in a County with a population of a HALF MILLION people… there were Initial Appearances one to two times a day. And each court session would last from 15 minutes to 3.5 hours. The longest day you could expect to have would be after a 3 day weekend and they would only have one long court shift… that lasted 4 hours. Therefore… 563,000 people in the county… and there is 20 hours maximum of Initial Appearances. Here… in a county just north of 5,000 people… Court happens once a week and lasts almost all day. Just for fun… MATH TIME! Population of 563,000 and 20 Hours.... 1 Hour= 28,150 people. Population of 5,000 and 7 Hours… 1 Hour= 714 people (roughly). Granted… those numbers are meaningless. But still… PREP (Professionalism Responsibility Efficiency Practicality)!

As for the actual details of Magistrate Court? ::suppresses a rage shudder::

First hearing went over well. Poor guy who’d had severe neurological issues and could no longer use or move his right arm. So, I put him on the cheapest payment plan we’ve got, gave him my office number and said, “Keep in contact, pay what you can to eliminate your debt, and we’ll try to work with you.”

Second hearing went over well. A woman drove down from MN, grabbed her daughter’s expensive toy from her ex-boyfriend’s house and tried to leave. Except… she had no permission to be on her ex-boyfriend’s property. She had no permission to be in her ex-boyfriend’s home. She had no permission to remove anything from his home. And the ex-boyfriend wasn’t there at the time. So… at a minimum the woman is Per Se guilty of Trespass. And so I told her we’d do the absolute bare minimum sentence we could do if she wanted to plead and I encouraged her that I wouldn’t have a problem if she plead No Contest so that (should her ex-boyfriend decide to get punitive) she could be protected. So… see? Kind, understanding, professional prosecutor trying to thread the needle between FACE THE CONSEQUENCES and You Are Human!

Then we had about an hour break. But it wasn’t a break because we had cases that had been fucked up that we needed to work on.

CASE FUCK UP 1: There’s a guy that is back in our jail. He’s been there a lot lately. In fact, the jailer brought us the reports… he has been in our jail 9 times this year alone. Considering this is the 10th Month of the Year (and we’re only half way through it) that is just about ONCE A MONTH. The Magistrate started to complain about seeing him so often; the jailer said his first words when he sobered up were “When am I getting out today?”, and I held my tongue. Because the Magistrate is sitting there bitching trying to figure out if we can legally send him to a Substance Abuse Program without holding a trial (we can’t and it is appalling that a judge would consider that) and the Magistrate is wondering why he keeps showing up in her courtroom. Well, I have an answer for that. He drinks, gets angry, breaks into people’s homes, gets arrested and then… the Magistrate gives him a fine that he isn’t technically required to pay. So, no, your honor… I don’t understand why he keeps coming back. It couldn’t possibly be the fact that this court has never once required him to take responsibility for his criminal actions.

CASE FUCK UP 2: This one is allllll my boss’ handiwork and I love sharing with all of you when she fucks up because… as much as I bitch that I want a teacher and am sick of trying to figure out this job completely on my own… this is the reason why I’m glad that I haven’t learned from her. Let me tell you a story with Pseudonyms. Samuel is a rough guy. Constantly drinking. Constantly getting in trouble. In July, Samuel got very drunk and hit a police officer. Samuel knew that what he had done was wrong and plead guilty to it. A week later, Samuel was smoking methamphetamine and was arrested again. My Boss offered him a plea deal (probation, of course) and he signed that plea deal. Everything was perfectly fine and going smoothly. Then, when My Boss submitted the Order to the Court about the signed plea deal, she randomly added language that dismissed Assaulting a Police Officer. Nobody knows why she did this. Nobody knows how she even got a hold of the Assault Case to begin with. But it created problems when a judge filed the order. Because now, there was a Plea of Guilty and A Dismissal on the same case, on the same charge. Worse… the plea deal signed by the defendant Samuel made no mention whatsoever of dismissing any charges. Therefore, My Boss had to have found a case that wasn’t connected, written a brand new sentence into the Order, and filed it. I can’t even think of a suitable analogy outside of the law. Allow me to try to describe the idiocy via Retail Shoes:

A man buys a pair of shoes, Nike Air Jordan 3. He pays in full, thanks you and leaves.
The next week, the man buys another pair of shoes, Adidas Ultra Boost Uncaged. He pays in full, thanks you and leaves.
As you do monthly inventory, you discover that you are missing a box of Nike Air Jordan 3s that should be in stock, but aren’t. You phone the man who bought the Nike Air Jordan 3s the other week and refund his money expecting this to clear up the Inventory issue.

Legally… it is that foolish. It is creating an issue that did not exist, that never existed, and never needed to exist. And it took us a long time to try to track the problem, come up with a solution, and ask My Boss to make the solution happen. To which she said, “Can we do something simpler? What would you suggest?” Rage:Head:Desk. You… dangerous… idiot.

Then a case. A case staring a defendant I’ve seen in court at least 6 times this year. I’ve only been here for 6 months! But… this one I fucked up. I fucked up and I’ll own it. I didn’t follow up with my witness to make sure they would be present. So I dismissed the case. Totally on me. Not going to deny my own error.

Then the rest of the day? Two mental health hearings and an initial appearance.
Mental Health Hearing 1: How are things? Good? Good!
Mental Health Hearing 2: He refuses to participate? The magistrate says there’s nothing we can do? Lets set it for hearing next month!
Done in less than an hour. The initial appearance? TOOK 2 HOURS! Because the magistrate wanted the young man to know she was disappointed he had been in her court room so often. She was very upset indeed. BUT SHE WAS STILL GOING TO RELEASE HIM WITHOUT SETTING A BOND! So… you’re mad he keeps showing up, but you refuse to do anything about it.... awesome.

Meanwhile… the conference room connected to the Magistrate Courtroom has a surprisingly large amount of noise coming from it. LOUD yelling, LOUD screaming. I figured (as often happens) a court mandated Family Team Meeting was taking place. Two women explode out of the room, shrieking at each other. One of them looks up, sees me, smiles, and waves. My next door neighbors. The people who live next door to me. Court Ordered Family Team Meeting… because one of their children was running around the playground stabbing other kids with a needle.

So… hello Today. You have been a wonderful day in proving that I need to get the hell out of here. My community is insane. My job is crappy. My boss is certifiable. The court I work in is deeply fundamentally broken. And, all the while, I would still like to know what the hell I’m doing in this job and I’m looking for an opportunity to learn how to be an adequate or skilled lawyer.

Y’know… what a perfect day to be expecting a phone call about a job. AND YES, I’ve been pleading with The All Mighty all day that I hear good news.

Yet… here I am at 4:45 p.m. and I haven’t heard anything. Logically, I’m reaching the point of stressed. I want this job. I need this job. I have, at least, a semi-okay chance at getting this job. So I’m thinking over and over CALL WITH GOOD NEWS CALL WITH GOOD NEWS CALL WITH GOOD NEWS CALL WITH GOOD NEWS! Still, my phone remains silent. For my own personal well being, I suppose I will give them a call before the weekend if I don’t hear from them. I don’t care if it looks desperate or needy. This is, potentially, a wonderful opportunity and I intend to follow it up.

(Dangerously… I’ve been looking at houses in CR on Zillow. SO MANY of them have fences… for dog ownership possibilities. NONE of the houses in Tiny Town have fences… NONE of them… which is likely why everybody here owns a million semi-feral cats and almost zero dogs).