The Show Must Go On

It has always worked this way: I'll go months without having any trials, or even any trials set, and then suddenly, I have tons! By this time tomorrow, I will have had three trials in two weeks. The way our judges calendar things, usually about one in three trials set actually "go," so you do the math. In addition to being in court constantly, I have three of the neediest clients in the office. They're really sweet, and very incompetent, but they tend to leave about ten messages a day on my voicemail, each. And when they happen to catch me in the office, I'm on the phone with them for a half hour. This is when "Evercom," the jail phone system, cuts them off. Usually, when a client is on the phone with me for that long, I can do something else, while still following what they are saying. But with them, it takes all my focus to figure out what they are talking about.

For example, one of them told me today that his mother is a blackmailer. I'm quite sure he's got no clue what the word means, but I finally figured out what he meant by it. He thinks his mother is preventing him from "being a man" by paying his bills and taking care of his trailer. He just doesn't want to be taken care of in this fashion, because he is a grown-up. His schizophrenia apparently only started manifesting a year or two ago, and he has not figured out that he is just not like everyone else. He wants to work and to drive and to pay his own bills, thank you very much! The problem arises when he comes into contact with law enforcement and ends up in jail because he's scared of them, calls them terrorists, and fights with them. It's hard to hold down a job when you're in jail that often!

Meanwhile, I have been having last-minute plea hearings, trials where the client doesn't show up, trials that get continued at the last minute, and actual trials. My trials actually haven't been that crazy. No interpreters going on strike, or ADAs going completely crazy during closings, or anything. My one last Wednesday was fairly straight forward: possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. (Here, that carries up to 9 years, plus any habitual offender time.) It looked like it would be a decent case, at first. My guy was the driver and only occupant in a car, registered to someone else, and in a fanny pack on the floor was 27 grams of meth, scales, empty baggies, syringes, etc. In addition, there was a purse with a glass pipe. No identifying documents were found in either. (My guy and the registered owner of the car were both male, and thus unlikely to be caught dead with a purse!) My guy had an empty plastic baggie in his pocket, that was not tested for the presence of controlled substances. (He was arrested for misdemeanor DWI, and pulled over for expired tags.) The problem was that the baggie in his pocket had a "brand" on it: a symbol usually used to distinguish a particular dealer. Empty baggies in the bag with the 27 grams of meth had the same symbol. Surprise! I kept the jury out for a couple hours debating it, though! And we have a couple appeal-able issues.

My trial this past Tuesday was just confusing. It was an embezzlement case, where my client was alleged to have stolen $1000 dollars from the deposit at her job in a convenience store. I have never heard of a place that handles cash with such shoddy cash control policies! (And I have worked at several.) No one double-counts the money! Ever! Not the registers, and not the daily deposits. Once the "drawers" (registers) have over a certain amount, they are totaled, balanced, and the money is put in a cash bag, and dropped into a safe. Every morning, the prior day's cash bags are re-counted, totaled, and entered into a computer manually by a manager (in this case, my client). Later in the morning, the same person who did the computer entries re-counts the money, prepares a deposit slip for the bank, and takes it to the bank. The sum total of the State's case against my client was that the computer entry for a particular day's total exceeded the same day's deposit slip total by $1000, and my client was the one to do the deposit that day. The other manager testified that there had "never" been a disparity between the computer print-out and the deposit slip before. And that my client had worked there a year. Now, if I were going to embezzle money, I certainly wouldn't start with $1000! And I would certainly not do it in such an obvious way, when I was the one creating the disparity between the amount of money deposited and what the computer print-out says that I should deposit, when I controlled what the computer said! It makes no sense! The jury came back after an hour with a whole list of questions: Was there a camera on the drop box (no), who had access to the key for the drop box (everyone) what are the cash control procedures, etc. Twenty minutes later, they came back guilty, but with three or four jurors looking seriously disgruntled. I have never seen jurors look so angry coming back with a verdict before! A couple, especially, looked extremely irate. Anyway, very strange. And for once, likely to get overturned on "sufficiency of evidence," since there was nothing more than a manually entered computer total to show the extra $1000 ever existed!

Anyway, this is quite long enough, and I have trial again tomorrow: possession of meth again. My guy's girlfriend says it was hers. Great if they believe her. Horrible if they don't, since my guy's looking at the possibility of 8 years of mandatory habitual offender time if they convict. Well, the show must go on!