I Do Everything Two and a Half Weeks Early
Mrs. P. and I had the following conversation yesterday:
Me: You know that trial I just did?
Mrs. P.: Yeah.
Me: I’m working on the sentencing memo and I pulled his old files. Get a load of the break this guy got in 1996. [Reads disposition report to Mrs. P.] Can you believe it? This D.A. just wanted to dump this case. I’m going to find the D.A. and call them up and berate them.
Mrs. P.: The deal sounds fine to me. You know, I would have worked with whoever it is who made the deal. I was in Compton in 1996. Maybe I can tell you about the D.A. Who was it?
So I read the name to her.
It was Mrs. P.’s maiden name.
It was actually a perfectly fine disposition. She could have sent a jaywalker to prison and I still would have pulled the “Look at how lenient this D.A. was!” gag. I had merely feigned outrage to see if I could get her to agree that the D.A. was just trying to dump the case.
We think it’s funny that we both talked to the same guy. I cross-examined him in my recent trial, and she took a plea from him in 1996.
P.S. Incidentally, in September 1996, when Mrs. P. was busting her behind (marching into court, getting ready for trial, taking pleas, and such) I was at home sitting on mine. I was in between my clerkship, which I had just completed, and my return to my civil job at a large New York sweatshop law firm (no offense, Jackie!). I took about two months, and played computer chess, read books, exercised, and generally experimented with my circadian rhythm period. I discovered I have a natural day of 28-29 hours. Every day I woke up 4-5 hours later than the day before. It was fun. Everyone should do it once.
P.P.S. The title of the post relates to the first day of next month.
Wait til you’re looking through a DA file and have the same reaction only to find out it was a case YOU handled back in the day . . . . or even weirder in one case I had, it was a case my father handled while HE was a DA
Comment by C Student — 3/16/2006 @ 9:24 am
Sync or swim
Patterico has discovered a Great Truth about himself: I was in between my clerkship, which I had just completed, and my return to my civil job at a large New…
Trackback by dustbury.com — 3/16/2006 @ 9:42 am
or weirder still…my cousin was going through old court orders to see if he could get a particular sanction against a client lifted, when he came across the original order, signed by his father who was the presiding judge in the case.
Comment by sam — 3/16/2006 @ 10:37 am
OK that’s a funny story Patterico.
Comment by Dwilkers — 3/16/2006 @ 11:15 am
“… when Mrs. P. was busting her behind (marching into court, getting ready for trial, taking pleas, and such) I was at home sitting on mine.”
Next to having good parents a man is fortunate to have a good wife. When my wife insists that she is smarter than I am, I remember who married whom and smile.
Comment by nk — 3/16/2006 @ 1:45 pm
Pattrick,
My father returned to the small town where he’d originally practiced medicine after my mother’s death.He worked (Paps and pelvics,essentially) part time for the son of his previous partner.Once,gazing through a chart,he chided the patient for the absence of her “yearly “.She told him she’d had her uterus removed at29 or 322 or some such age.My father asked “Who would do a hysterectomy on a woman of that age?”You guessed it.He had.
Comment by Lincoln — 3/16/2006 @ 6:42 pm