Enjoy Every Sandwich

I haven’t been in a court room in a long time, but on Thursday I spent about an hour in one. I had forgotten how depressing it is.

The last time was several years ago in Tucson. I was called for jury duty and made it into the jury pool for a horrific drug case. It was horrific because the defendant was being set up to be a victim of an obvious miscarriage of justice. Two things in particular took place during voir dire that made this plain to anyone paying even a little bit of attention.

First, one of the charges against the defendant was possession of a ziploc bag. No, I am not kidding. He was charged primarily with drug possession (a small amount of pot) and because the pot was in a bag, the bag was deemed “drug paraphernalia” in an obvious effort to raise the potential penalty for this victimless “crime”. Obviously a bullshit charge.

Second, when one potential juror was asked by the judge if he knew the primary witness for the prosecution, the soon-to-be-not-a-juror began relating information in front of the entire pool about an investigation the witness/police officer was the subject of which would have seriously called his character into question. The judge immediately shut the man up, dismissed him, and instructed us all to ignore the information we were provided. It seemed highly likely from the way this was done that we were not meant to have any information which might discredit his testimony in our estimation. The deck was being stacked against the defendant.

Had I made it onto the jury, the man would have had at least one Not Guilty vote that refused to budge under any circumstances. Mere possession of drugs (and plastic bags) is not a real crime, and I will never vote to destroy someone’s life or waste taxpayer dollars over something so petty. Not surprisingly, although I made it to the jury pool, I was not selected as a juror.

This week I was in a court room in support of my friend, aka The Goat Guy, who has been fighting a legal battle for more than a year over another illegal possession- possession of a goat inside the town of Philipsburg, MT. I won’t get into the details at the moment. It was an omnibus hearing in which a schedule for motions, rulings, jury selection and a trial (should it come to that) were laid out by the judge. The Goat Guy was the last to be called by the judge so I sat through a couple of other legal proceedings before the case I was there to observe.

The funniest thing about this court house visit was something that another lady there to support The Goat Guy showed me. On the third floor, the ladies’ restroom is back in the corner of what used to be the “fainting room” complete with a bed for ladies who, I assume, were overcome by the horrors of the legal system or whatever.

One of those other proceedings reminded me of how court is so terribly depressing. They both were for drunk driving related incidents. I walked in late to the first one, but it resulted in the defendant going to rehab, getting a suspended jail sentence, paying some fines, whatever.

The second one was a drunk driving incident in which the defendant killed a human being. This case was, in my opinion, a complete joke revealing the “justice” system merely to be a “legal” system with little concern for justice. At the last minute, a plea agreement was cut with the defendant. For killing a human being due to driving drunk, the guy is going to prison for about 11 years maximum and paying a fine. I don’t know what is the minimum amount of time he can serve. The plea agreement was submitted to the judge, briefly discussed, and this felony murder proceeding took about as much time in court as the misdemeanor goat possession case. It was a shamefully casual matter once the deal had been cut.

The judge asked if the family of the victim had been given an opportunity to weigh in on the appropriateness of the punishment. It was then revealed by the prosecutor that murder victim had no known family. That may explain why instead of pursuing a harsher penalty via trial the prosecutor was willing to make a plea agreement in what appeared to be an open and shut case.

In exchange for a human life taken under the influence of a legal intoxicant, the state took a mere eleven years from a young man plus about $50K which he will probably never be able to pay. It sickens me how cheaply this case was settled. Meanwhile, how many people are in prison, and for how long, for the entirely victimless crime of illegal drug possession?