I was in court today for some really easy stuff, like telling the judge these two cases he wants to dismiss because no action is being taken are fine with me to dismiss because they were all settled out of court: one had been to get a receiver to sell a house, and upon being served with papers on the case, the other party just agreed to sell the house, and the other was a child custody matter where the opposing party went to prison so my client got custody without making further payments on his case. The judge was late, and I actually had another hearing in another courtroom* that I needed to get to soon. I was just hanging around, spouting off about how the next county is needing to build a new jail because they are short on space, and in my opinion they would not be needing to do so if the DA was not so hard-headed when it came to plea negotiations. The court reporter said something about me not being afraid to climb on my soapbox.
It reminded me of yesterday's Chamber of Commerce luncheon when the President of the Chamber asked the lady next to me if she would mind getting called on to lead the invocation. She declined for some reason, I forget, and the President said she would ask this other person. I asked, "How come you never ask me to lead the invocation?" She said, "I am always a bit afraid of what you will say." I think she knows me pretty well, huh?
*I really thought this was weird. We have a County Judge that normally holds court one day a month, and two district judges that sit in the next county with which we share both such disticts who each hold court in the county once a month. So we regularly have court three days in the month. Normally, though, the district courts hold court on Wednesdays. County Court holds court on Friday. We already had County Court this month, but this was like a special day where there were a bunch of really old cases and some JP Appeals. The County Court rarely does any civil business, so this might be the once yearly Civil Court day. We also had already had both District Court days, but Monday starts Jury Week, one about every three months, so the District Court was handling pre-trial matters in readilness for next week's jury trials possibles. We only have one courtroom, unless you use the Commissioner's Court room. Today, it was used. District Court was held at 1:30 and thankfully the County Court was beginning at 2:00. I easily walked across the street to the other building where the Commissioner's Court is housed after my bried appearance in District Court to appear for my County Court matter. It was a JP Appeal that was dismissed because the party presenting the appeal did not appear. I guess she decided it was easier to move out of that house than to pay the attorney she hired to prosecute the appeal.
Posted by Tiger at August 22, 2003 11:59 PM