On being in court. Or: ARGH!

I have been in court every day for the past twenty-one work days. I am in court for the next two. Then I have a blissful Friday in the office, followed by a week with four non-court days.

I've had full weeks before. But I usually get at least a day to, you know, actually prepare cases rather than just sit in court waiting for my cases to be called.

But oh, oh, oooooh. I can't remember the last time I was this excited for the week to be over.

I am a bit concerned.

I usually get to work somewhere between 7:20 and 7:40. Most others arrive about an hour later. I like the time to relax, prepare for the day, and read my work e-mail. It's quiet. I am not tempted to talk to colleagues when I should be working.

But today, I am a bit concerned. I got in, got some water, and sat down to read my work e-mail. And I found this message from my boss concerning an "important directive":

Effective immediately all personnel will stop calling employees by their Christian names and will cease wearing pork-pie hats...

I find this a bit odd.

Post Script. I did some research and found the following that sheds some light on the e-mail I received:

The hat was prevalent in New Guinea in January 1944, when Australian troops had just defeated a Japanese stronghold at Kankiryo Saddle. The book Australia in the War of 1939—1945 Series 1—Army Volume VI—The New Guinea Offensives (1st Edition 1961) states on page 766:

According to the historian of the 2/10th Battalion, when word was received that General Vasey would visit the area on the 2nd, a signal was sent to all companies: "Other ranks will cease calling officers by their Christian names and will cease wearing pork-pie hats."

Then Tony shaved the llama.

Do I really need to tell you which misheard lyric that really is?

The Great Hoodie Caper.

I am convinced that there is a magical misfit out there. His commits all sorts of crimes. He is a nefarious creature. A drug dealer, gang banger, and thief. He is the lowest of the low, the bottom rung of humanity, lower and less intelligent than a single-celled amoeba. Less intelligent, even, than a horny, Republican law student (and second only to this man, they are the worst types of creatures out there). He sells drugs in school zones, he robs convenient stores, he beats his girlfriends and pimps them out to support his habit, he holds people hostage inside fast food restaurants. The amazing thing? He does all these things without ever getting caught.

His name is Hoodie Man.

Hoodie Man resides in high crime areas, where men wearing hoodies are virtually ubiquitous. And how does he avoid getting caught? He wears his hoodie during his crime sprees; people rarely see his hair or his face when he is in action. And when he is not committing crime, he takes his hoodie off. Which is why no one can ever recognize him.

So what happens? Some other poor chump who happens to be wearing a hoodie gets accused of Hoodie Man's crimes.

Hoodie Man usually wins, at least when it comes to pinning his crimes on other people. (We don't know whether he'd actually win at trial, since he's never been caught.) My poor clients who own hoodies get picked up again and again because of Hoodie Man's actions.

However, occasionally, I am triumphant. I received the judge's findings today on a recent motion to suppress. He allowed the motion, finding that because the only description given of a suspect was that he was wearing a hoodie, the police did not have reasonable suspicion to warrant a pat frisk of my client, who was only stopped because he was wearing a hoodie.

Take that, Hoodie Man.

Poor grammar nauseates me.

Every now and then someone will say, "I'm nauseous."

This always makes me giggle a little bit. Sometimes, if I don't like the person, I'll think to myself: You sure are nauseous, bitch!

The word nauseous means causing nausea. Something that makes other people feel sick. If you feel sick yourself? Then you feel nauseated.

Of course, all this is falling by the wayside. If you look up the word nauseous in an online dictionary, you will find that the common usage (read: incorrect usage) wins over, and the first definition is: to feel nauseated. This is wrong. It is as wrong as using the word melancholy as an adjective (it's a noun; the adjective form is melancholic).

Alas. Language is ever-evolving. Which means that when people misuse words long enough, they become "proper."

As for me, I implore you all. Bring proper usage back! You are no longer nauseous, friends and neighbors. You are nauseated! Change your usage. Do it in the name of grammar. Do it to feel intellectually superior. If those reasons aren't enough for you, then just do it for the Saucy Vixen.

Kitty cat.

A colleague has a former client who wants to sleep with her. He comes to the office on occasion to bring her little tidbits. Two weeks ago it was a very vaginal-looking plant and a tiny cat figurine.

Yesterday, I pointed out to her that both are vaginal gifts.

Her response: "A kitty isn't vaginal."

My retort: "It is if you call it a pussy."

Saving.

The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight SavingS Time.

Saving is used here as a verbal adjective (a participle). It modifies time and tells us more about its nature; namely, that it is characterized by the activity of saving daylight. It is a saving daylight kind of time. Because of this, it would be more accurate to refer to DST as daylight-saving time. Similar examples would be a mind-expanding book or a man-eating tiger.Saving is used in the same way as saving a ball game, rather than as a savings account.

Nevertheless, many people feel the word savings flows more mellifluously off the tongue. Daylight Savings Time is also in common usage, and can be found in most dictionaries.

Adding to the confusion is that the phrase Daylight Saving Time is innaccurate, since no daylight is actually being saved. Daylight Shifting Time would be better, but is not as politically desirable.

Motion denied.

Big fuckin' surprise. I mean, being a prosecutor is like being a Yankees fan: Your team wins even when it shouldn't.

Trial is scheduled for tomorrow. Mandatory minimum. Turd of a case. But at least we'll go down fighting.

Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be, a sports fan. I bow out of the Yankees/Red Sox controversy, which -- trust me -- is very difficult to do. I just stole the analogy from someone else, who said it back when the Sox were still losing all the time.

Cops versus Clients.

When cops do it it's called a "pat frisk."

When my clients do it it's called "indecent assault and battery."

And they say there's no justice.

Testilying.

I had a motion to suppress today in a case involving a search warrant. I argued an extremely narrow issue. The factual issue: the police report failed to mention a detail regarding how the warrant was executed.

I have no doubt that the search occurred the way it was written. That is, the detail was left out of the report because it never happened.

The prosecutor presented one witness; while the officer who testified was on the scene, he was not the officer who wrote the police report. Also, he was not the officer who purportedly did the thing that was never mentioned in the police report.

I told my boss this morning: "The cop'll take the stand, lie about what happened, I'll put my guy on to testify to contradict it, and then the motion will be denied."

It's not so much that I think police officers actively lie. Rather, I don't think they remember one case from the next. As this officer said, he's executed over a hundred warrants during the past two years. The purpose of the police report is to record the details because, really, cops can't be expected to remember the details on every single thing they do. Do some cops actively lie? Sure. But for the most part, I think they fill in the blanks and connect the dots during testimony. They know the standards and the rules; they know what they have to say to win.

Conversely, a defendant likely remembers pretty damn well what happened. He's had a single encounter that is pretty life-changing. The execution of a search warrant isn't just work to a criminal defendant. It's something out of the ordinary. It's something particularly memorable.

(The above should not be construed as a dimwitted notion that defendants never lie. That would be silly and naive. It's merely an illustration that a defendant is more apt to remember the details of an an interaction with police than a police officer is to remember an interaction with a citizen.)

The really irritating part? Even when the cops fill in the empty spaces (or just out-and-out lie), they're generally believed. People want to believe their police officers.

In the meantime, the judge took the motion under advisement. The trial is scheduled for Friday. I await my denial.