I wish I could have had a movie camera in the courtroom today. It would have been a great educational experience for everyone. Sabra, who was going to testify about the pup Jimi's personality, is in college and works as an intake coordinator and dog shift person.
She was wide eyed as a cat in a bucket of mice!
There was the couple who got mad at someone, went into their house and tore up walls, the kitchen and the bathroom and then smeared feces all over the floors. There was the girl who was stalking the LSU professor and had threatened his staff and the people at the Faculty Club. Not sure why she was stalking him but she spoke broken English and had a Chinese interpreter to hear the judge's enquiries.
The judge is an amazing man. He is compassionate, even though I think the people he sentences probably don't think he is. He is intelligent and thinks deeply before making each decision. You can see that he is pained by the young African American men who are standing for judgement before him.
One woman was accused of stealing credit cards and taking over $35,000 from a person over 60 years of age, which carries a sentence of 3 to 15 years at hard labor. He asked her, as he asks all his appearants, if she had graduated from high school. She said yes.
He asked which school and she told him Capitol High. He also graduated from Capitol. He told her they both came from the same background, the same families, the same school. He asked her to look at the difference in their lives, and what a person could accomplish when they worked for good and success.
He paused to let her think, then asked her to marvel that the both of them had ended up in this court room that day. Only that he was going home to his beloved daughters, and she would go home to a jail cell.
The impact of that moment was lost on so many of those young people this morning. And yet, they are the ones who who need to hear what this incredible man has to tell them.
The CAAWS case? It was dismissed with prejudice because the judge did not grant a continuance. Early this morning, the patrolman who arrested our guy saw his baby born full of potential in this world. He didn't make it to court.
The ADA plans on refiling the charges tomorrow, so we start this all over again.
Such was my day.
QUILTS AND DOGS We are back in the house since the Aug 2016 flood. Dogs are great and I am back to doing the quilting thing. Join us on our new journey in a "new" house.
sorry you have to start with this case all over again! love how you tell your story today - I do wish young (and not so young) would think before they jump into a life of crime
ReplyDeleteI thought if the dismissal was "with prejudice" you can't refile the same charges from the same incident...???? (what a shame if that's true, very sad if they 'get away with it.'
ReplyDeleteFrom online:
In criminal prosecutions, dismissal with prejudice bars the government from prosecuting the accused later on the same charge. A dismissal with prejudice is made in response to a motion to the court by the defendant or by the court sua sponte, if the accused is deprived of the constitutional right to a speedy trial.
My sister sometimes has to sit in at court proceedings for real serious types of crime doing clerical stuff. She talks about how crazy it can be. Let's hope the guy doesn't get away with what he did to that innocent dog.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised the guy who threw the dog isn't in jail already for something else. Usually people who would not care about another life will do something else stupid, shellfish and illegal. Karma wins in the end, but I'm glad you do your part and thank you for trying to stand up for the animals that can't do it for themselves. Good to hear about the judge too. Wise man. I would be so sick of listening to stupid selfish as soles all day long, I would not be a good and fair judge
ReplyDelete