by Bruce Han­ify  Seat your­self at a large wooden table, a dinged-up relic from the mid-1960s. Before you sits 60 to 80 files, which you learn to han­dle the way a short order cook han­dles burg­ers. Some of them have been hang­ing around since before your time and give off a dis­tinct odor.  Your court cal­en­dar has 60 to 70 defen­dants’ names on it. Most of the entries are pre­tri­als that can be han­dled in a few sec­onds, but then come the motions that need be argued and, at the end of the cal­en­dar, maybe 3 to 4 bench tri­als. The cops sit in the back row, bored, frus­trated, angry — count­ing their over­time, maybe, or hat­ing you, if it’s their day off, or maybe just because they hate you. You are play­ing the key­board of Jus­tice; many in your audi­ence hear only the sour notes.  Cat­calls and boos are expected.

Behind you sits a room­ful of crim­i­nal defen­dants, their friends and fam­ily. The bulk of them want to see “the man” — uh, that would be you, poo­dle — eat it.  Maybe the judge decides this is the right moment to play “whip the pros­e­cu­tor.” On the slight­est pre­tense, he finds some­thing to nit­pick — some­thing entirely irrel­e­vant, mind you. His nit­pick­ing is con­sciously inac­cu­rate, designed to dimin­ish you and enlarge him. He gets appre­cia­tive tit­ters from an audi­ence that can’t vote. Oh ha ha! A laugh at the prosecutor’s expense.

Breaks the day up.

The Sys­tem doesn’t have a brain, only a stom­ach. There’s a guy who told the truth about a hunt­ing vio­la­tion who got hit with the entire fine and sus­pended jail time for telling the truth, whereas the mother-son check schemers walk out the door because the sub­poe­naed bank wit­ness doesn’t bother to show up, and the judge dis­missed the case.  I turn around to watch the kid check-writer mouth “f _ _ _ you” to me as he leaves.  He and his mother will be laugh­ing when they hit the curb. Have to remem­ber to send that kid a valen­tine next spring.

You get through your 40 to 50 pre­tri­als and pro­ba­tion vio­la­tions.  Now it’s on to the motions. The troop­ers, deputies and offi­cers in the back row have been grum­bling, and rest­less. Well, some of them. The lazier ones who don’t like to work, but like the over­time, are con­tent. You might get a call from a sergeant later: “God­damnit, I don’t want to pay overtime!”

Yeah yeah.

Two sup­pres­sions went okay; the judge sup­presses the third. I dis­miss that case. On to the bench trials.

The monkey-man in the wife-beater grins through mot­tled teeth while he scratches his pits from the wit­ness stand. He makes a weird mon­key sound when he grins and has an odd habit of scratch­ing at his pits, like .… you know. A mon­key. He tells his side of the story through a perma-fried grin. Yeah, I saw the crip­pled woman beat the hell out of Joe. Sure, Joe is big and mean and lazy as a cut dog, but on this par­tic­u­lar day he was all vic­tim! Poor Joe didn’t stand a chance!

The crip­pled woman is con­victed. Can’t have peo­ple her that on the street! Peo­ple like mon­key man deserve to feel safe, too, you know. The law is blind to clothes and body odor. And brains.

Well, and some­times blind to truth, but that doesn’t matter.

I hug my files to my chest and leave the court­room, four new con­vic­tions to forget.

Back to the bunker, with its sur­plus desk and tired, beige phone, cracked and smudged with black stains.  Back to the other grunts who have the same dark humor I do.  We crank out rounds of sar­casm and deri­sion while clos­ing out files and mak­ing notes before going home.

Come 5:30 I’ll go home to a dark house and watch Clint East­wood movies.  By the time I lay down, this day will no longer be.

But tomor­row?  Promises more of the same.

Books by Bruce Han­ify at Smash­words
Bruce Han­ify 2010 All Rights Reserved

PLEASE SHARE

•