Friday, October 20, 2006
My First Encounter With Jewish Power
(4)
Very funny stuff here.
My very first encounter with the Arapahoe County Criminal Justice System occured in this very same back yard before there were fences in the area (tap). The occasion must have been about 1972 or 1973. One fateful afternoon I was in the back yard with my BB gun shooting wild flowers (for lack of better targets). There suddenly appeared a dude walking toward me. He entered my back yard as if he owned it! This definitely tended to piss me off. He identified himself as an off-duty police officer who was working as a part-time security guard for the condo complex just east of our house. He accused me of shooting out some windows (thunk) in the condos under construction. He then charged me with the crime of 'malicious mischief' and confiscated my BB gun. Whoa!
I was innocent of the charge. I was stunned and mystified. I was angry. I pleaded, 'not guilty.' I chose a 'trial to the judge' (not a trial to a jury - a huge mistake). I hired a lawyer. I expected to be fully vindicated. Wrong.
The trial date arrived. My lawyer and I appeared in court (lots of tap-tap above as I write this). As we were sitting in the hallway waiting for the trial to begin my lawyer advised me that the DA had offered us a deal: a 'deferred prosecution.' He did not explain the term to me in any detail - at least not in terms I understood. I rejected the offer: I was innocent and I intended to prove it in a court of law to an impartial judge.
A 'deferred prosecution,' I would later come to find out, was an offer to drop the charges after a certain length of time if the defendant committed no further crimes.
At trial my lawyer made absolutely no attempt to defend me! The cop lied under oath, describing how I had maliciously shot out condo windows. My lawyer failed to cross-examine him in any meaningful way. I could have put on a better defense myself! No evidence was presented (in the form of photographs, for example) other than the testimony of the cop. It was his word against mine. Surely the judge would rule 'not guilty' based on that lack of evidence.
Wrong: I was a solitary Irishman in the Jaws of Jewish Legal Power (boom).
Very funny stuff here.
My very first encounter with the Arapahoe County Criminal Justice System occured in this very same back yard before there were fences in the area (tap). The occasion must have been about 1972 or 1973. One fateful afternoon I was in the back yard with my BB gun shooting wild flowers (for lack of better targets). There suddenly appeared a dude walking toward me. He entered my back yard as if he owned it! This definitely tended to piss me off. He identified himself as an off-duty police officer who was working as a part-time security guard for the condo complex just east of our house. He accused me of shooting out some windows (thunk) in the condos under construction. He then charged me with the crime of 'malicious mischief' and confiscated my BB gun. Whoa!
I was innocent of the charge. I was stunned and mystified. I was angry. I pleaded, 'not guilty.' I chose a 'trial to the judge' (not a trial to a jury - a huge mistake). I hired a lawyer. I expected to be fully vindicated. Wrong.
The trial date arrived. My lawyer and I appeared in court (lots of tap-tap above as I write this). As we were sitting in the hallway waiting for the trial to begin my lawyer advised me that the DA had offered us a deal: a 'deferred prosecution.' He did not explain the term to me in any detail - at least not in terms I understood. I rejected the offer: I was innocent and I intended to prove it in a court of law to an impartial judge.
A 'deferred prosecution,' I would later come to find out, was an offer to drop the charges after a certain length of time if the defendant committed no further crimes.
At trial my lawyer made absolutely no attempt to defend me! The cop lied under oath, describing how I had maliciously shot out condo windows. My lawyer failed to cross-examine him in any meaningful way. I could have put on a better defense myself! No evidence was presented (in the form of photographs, for example) other than the testimony of the cop. It was his word against mine. Surely the judge would rule 'not guilty' based on that lack of evidence.
Wrong: I was a solitary Irishman in the Jaws of Jewish Legal Power (boom).
