"You've taken a lot of bites out of this apple, and now there is nothing left but the core."

On Friday I spent my entire morning in court awaiting the hearing my boss had for her nutty case that I mentioned previously. We ended up waiting 3 hours for our hearing to be called before the court because the court's docket got a little over-booked that morning. So I sat in the court room with my boss from about 9:30 to 12:30 waiting. I'm really glad we had to wait though, I got to watch and listen to a bunch of cases. A lot of them were sentencing hearings for criminal cases. The first one I heard involved the sentencing of a 65 year old man who had been convicted of buying and possessing child pornography. It was interesting but definitely hard to listen to at times, especially when the judge began reading statements made by the victims (the 8-10 year old children who were abused and photographed) and their parents. The next criminal case I heard involved a large man from El Salvador who had acted as the enforcer to a group of men who made a business out of dealing cocaine and selling illegal guns. This enforcer was charged with several counts, including being an illegal alien in possession of an illegal firearm, drug charges, and selling sawed off shotguns.

The judge was a no-nonsense guy which made all of the hearing interesting. He called people out on their garbage stories and statements. A funny example was a guy who had been recently released from prison after serving time for drug use. A month following his release he tested positive for marijuana in his drug test and back he went. At the hearing his attorney argued that even though he tested positive he didn't smoke marijuana, he just came in contact with it. This defendant decided to take the witness stand and I have to say this was a poor decision. It all would have went much better if he had just kept quiet. He said he walked into a room of his house where his kids and their friends were smoking pot and he took in the second hand smoke then immediately left. Well, that started a whole new mess for him and his family. But basically, the judge flat out told the guy he doesn't believe he didn't use the drugs again and sent him to prison for a weekend to think things over.

The title of this post is a quote from this judge when he was talking to a repeat offender who had come before this particular judge 9 times. As for our hearing, it went pretty well. We got about half of the plaintiff's charges dismissed. A thing about this plaintiff - she is acting as an attorney pro se, meaning she is representing herself. Not the best idea because none of the motions she files are correct and none of her charges are even applicable in the state of Virginia. The judge told her she needs to consult with an attorney and refile things correctly or he will throw the entire case out. Let's just say the plaintiff did not take kindly to this advice and did not hold back from telling the judge just what she thought. It was definitely an interesting learning experience and the highlight of my week. I'm a little sad about the fact I won't be here for the next round of hearings for this case, I know they certainly will be better than any prime time tv drama. It's too bad they don't allow food in the court house, because these hearings certainly would have matched well with a tub of popcorn and unlike movie tickets, they are free to the public.