I was sitting in court in my plainclothes scoping the others. There was a woman there with enormous tattooed breasts, exposed nearly to the edge of her nipples with a leopard print jacket on to keep the rest of her warm, so that was pretty funny. My hearing was at 3 , but I had arrived 15 minutes early, teacher’s pet style.I watched as other people were called. Hours went by but I was never really bored. People are freaks as I am sure I don’t have to tell you so they are fun to watch.
I am a people too, so also a freak and I wondered of and on if I had anyone fooled. As I wrote yesterday, I meant to be tricky… so appear bland as possible and I wondered if I were actually being successful. Did the judge look at me and think, “She’s plain?” Or did he think, “I just know that one over there has green clogs in her closet and she’s in here kissing ass…”
::smiles::
No way to tell with Neptune the way it is but anyway, my case was called at a quarter to 6 and I was literally the only (non-court) person left in the courtroom. The judge had already told the people ahead of me he had to pick up his kid at 6 so you can just imagine the situation. He wants to get out of there, so do I, so I came forward when called with my rules in mind… that is, “no drama!”
Now I happen to be the defendant in this case, although I am not in trouble and the whole court knows it. Curious but true and anyway, the judge was outlining my rights.
“Thank you for your patience. I know you have had to wait a long time today. You are here because of this. You are also here because of this and this other. You have the right to this. This, this and this could happen to you and so could this. Now you have the right to this and also to this other. If you don’t like this, you can do this. If you don’t like that you can do this or this or this and if this were to happen you would be able to do this. You would have that right. You also have the right to do this, this and this and this. Now do you understand what you’ve been told?”
“I understand I have a lot of rights, your honor. Boy, that’s a lot of rights, thank you.”
The court cracked up and I blew my cool card. But come on. Just look at all those rights.
but, hey, the cool card isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be 😉
I think you already won because the Judge gave you info on your rights. It’s surprisingly rare, and often poorly done.
Really, that was a win right there that you have the judge laying out your options with rights attached.
when i appeared in court to have my divorce finalized, the judge was playing guessing games with the bailiff about what various people did for a living! since i was dressed up for the occasion, he kept guessing wrong with me — lawyer — nope, teacher — nope, accountant — nope. he never got around to unemployed writer and i never told him 😉