The Thinking Minority

So today was Judge Trial Day in front of Judge B. (or as they tell me a slow guilty plea). First a little background. If a case has made it this far, several things may or may not have happened:
1. The Public Defender's Office (hereinafter we) has had no contact with the defendant
2. The State's Attorney (The State or other fun names) will not budge on a really bad offer
3. The defendant turns down every offer from the state, or
4. The defendant swears on his/her innocence (9.9/10 a bad move)

Today, was one of those days where the only contact I had with the defendant was him telling me that he was in California and would not be in court. So, I am completely unprepared to try this case. In fact, I haven't even read the file. I hadn't read the file because I didn't know the case existed because it wasn't my case - his attorney was on vacation the week before trial. His original attorney hadn't read the file in at least a week. We were in quite the pickle, Dick.

I filed a motion to continue knowing that the judge would address the motion in court instead of on Friday (the last working day before court). He addressed the motion and denied it. Not to end there, he also ordered me out of the courtroom to prepare myself for a trial that will start at 1pm (it was 11 am). Panicked, I went back to the office and freaked the hell out! When I calmed down (30 seconds later), I met the defendant, who decided to show up after all and late to boot, pretty much told him to prepare for at least three months in jail and made him go buy clothes for court. Since my client was HUGE he could not find his size and showed up to court 15 minutes late. Being very generous not to issue a capias and be done with it all, the judge still held the trial that I was still not prepared for because I had nothing. NOTHING! Some people say they have nothing, but they have one last ditch effort or idea. I had nothing and then I had nothing more. I went to the court reporter to order a transcript and she did everything but laugh at me because, apparently, that takes weeks.

Then came the trial. It's really all a blur and I have had several beers since I started typing, but I won. Somehow in my unpreparedness, I managed to create some doubt in the Judge's mind and he found my really huge client - not guilty. In short, I won my first trial. Holy Shit! That just sunk in. Sweet!

Anyhoo, that was today. I have jail plea day tomorrow and well.....