Stupid People

I have problems with idiots. Given my job, I shouldn't be surprised and I usually find in entertaining, but occasionally I just want to repeatedly bang my head against my hard wooden desk until I blissfully slip into oblivion. Keep in mind please, that I have just came off of 4 days solid in court and have caught a really nasty cold, so my tolerance for morons may be a tad low.

I serve a very rural community and I had the good fortune to be trapped into 6 hours of court in one of the smaller counties we serve. The courthouse is very old and picturesque. It brings to mind seens of old men in overalls whittling and spitting tobacco on benches outside the courthouse. Mainly because there ARE old men spitting tobacco juice and whittling outside the old courthouse. Unfortunately the air conditioning in the courthouse doesn't work that well either. This adds to the effect of the vintage building. After spending most of a day waiting for my single case to be called, I heard something interesting during a plea bargain. The young man standing before the judge was up on charges of burglary and theft. Among the items listed as being stolen from a private residence was underwear. When I heard this, I turned to the probation officer who worked the county regularly and ask in a whisper, "Is there a large blackmarket demand for used underwear up here." Without missing a beat, she whispered back, "Depends on whether they are bikinis or boxers."

About 18 months ago I had a parolee who had been out about a year start giving me trouble. He was behind on his supervision fees and had started missing meetings with me. I cut him a little slack because he was working as a block mason's assistant and construction can have unpredictable hours. On a rainy afternoon, I finally caught up to him and we met in the city hall building. We sat down on a bench and I started chewing him out about missed meetings. He responded by apologizing and saying, "We've been working a lot of overtime, I don't have a license and it is just hard to make my meetings. We are working so much and working out of town a lot I just don't have the time." So then without any interuption I asked him why he hadn't caught up on his unpaid fees. Without a pause he said, "The weather is bad and we haven't been working very much, so I haven't had any money."

I recently did a sentencing report on a young lady who was part of a three-way drug sale. They three people all parked their vehicles in a drugstore parking lot. One individual went in and filled a pain medication perscription, came out and divided up the pills and accepted money for them in the parking lot in clear view of the police officer writing a ticket on the other side of a road.

Another court case involved a man charged with felony reckless endangerment, speeding, reckless driving, possession of a controlled substance for resale, possession of a controlled substance for delivery, carrying a concealed weapon, theft over $10,000. Seems he was heading down the interstate around 90 mph with the lights flashing and blowing the car horn, weaving in and out of traffic. When the traffic stop was made, the subject was behaving suspiciously, so the troopers ran the tag. The car was stolen. When the suspect was arrested and searched, he was found to be in possession of a handgun and large sum of cash. The car was search and a large quantity of methamphetamine, packaged for resale was found. A similar case was in the paper recently. The man was brought to police attention because he drove off without paying for $25 worth of gas. Why would anyone with a car load of drugs risk attracking attention to themselves in such stupid ways. I have at least three people on my caseload for drug crimes, who were caught because they were speeding. One college kid was picked up with over 5 pounds of marijuana, 15 pills of x and some cocaine because it rolled out from under the seat of his car when he pulled over to get a speeding ticket.

A woman formerly on my caseload picked up new charges of possession when she was caught shooting up in a motel. The deskclerk called the police because her boyfriend was wandering around the parking lot naked, babbling incoherently. When the police took him back to the room to get clothes, they caught her with a syringe in her leg.

A college kid was on my caseload. He got into some drug problems in another state. Apparently he started his on business supplying the local fraternities with not-even-remotely-legal substances for their parties. He moved back to this state to live with his parents, enrolled in a local school and fired his business back up. He didn't use the stuff himself. What he did was slip to a nearby city Friday evening and bring back enough stuff to supply his people for a couple of weeks. Since the trips weren't regular, they didn't trigger any warnings. Then one weekend he and his supplier decided to hit the town a little before he came back. Only his source had an open warrant and was recognised by a local law officer. When the stop was made, my guys id was ran. Since he was an out-of-state case, the tbi was notified of his residence in this state and the fact that he was on probation. This meant he would be searched without benefit of a search warrant. They found a pound of marijuana, 10 tabs of x, .3 grams of cocaine, 4 oxyconten tablets, a set of digital scales, $5000 in cash, and some other paraphernalia.

Then there is the bug zapper effect. A bug zapper works by presenting a pretty light that attracts the bugs, then electrocutes them when they get to close. For idiots on probation, Wal-mart is there. I don't have any idea how many of my people manage to get into trouble in the local Walmarts. There was the lady on probation for forgery who was arrested for shoplifting a $3.00 belly-button ring. Then there was the drug case caught trying to return a computer she never bought in the first place, then the out-of-state drug case caught shoplifting makeup or the diversion case for drugs who was picked up for pi and shoplifting bananas.

Then in court we have the sweet-young-thing who's ex-boyfriend calls her and tells her he is going to bash in her car windows. The next morning on side window and a rear window on her car are broken in. The car actually belongs to her mother who reports it. When this reaches court, the mother provides only hearsay evidence, so Miss TrailerPark 2006, in her 2 sizes too small belly shirt and spray on jeans gets on the stand and after much prying by the da, finally admits that she had a relationship with the accused, he did call her and treaten to do the damage and he did call and apologize for it. She would not say whether she believed he did it though. Despite repeated questions, she would not state an opinion as to whether he committed the vandalism. It finally came out the he sent her a dozen roses 2 days after the event though. I'm sure that made up for the $250 repair bill her mother paid.

Then of course the out-of-state girl I mentioned earlier. The makeup girl. This was an out-of-state diversion case. A diversion is a special type of probation where the probationer can expunge there record if they successfully complete probation. No felony conviction, no lost rights, clean record like nothing happening. You can only qualify for it once. She comes down here with a 2 year sentence. She's 21 and a cute little thing, long, dark hair, big brown eyes. Skinny little thing with skin tight jeans and perfect makeup. She was working 3rd shift in a truck stop as a cashier. First thing she does is get caught shoplifting makeup from a Wal-mart. That isn't enough to justify extradition, so I am told to keep monitoring her. Then I have to come into work on a Saturday morning and track her down to make her return a car she "borrowed" from a 50 year-old truck driver she met at work. She claims he loaned it to her, he says she found out where he hid the spare key and took it. I figure he loaned her the car expectign to be "repaid". When he didn't get any he found out about me and called threatening to have her picked up for theft. Then she is arrested for domestic assault. She attacked an ex-boyfriend in the parking lot of Cotton-eyed Joes. I questioned her about why she was at the nightclub, but could never prove she went into it. She was put on misdemeanor probation for that one. Last but not least, she got the crap beaten out of her by a thug when she wouldn't put out after he gave her a ride home. I had lectured her about flirting with the wrong people, but it didn't do any good. She played on her looks a lot, but she looked pretty rough after that one. It didn't do me a lot of good, when she found out I had to get my warrant from another state on her, she did the bare minimum to meet her requirements. She finally found a sugar daddy to pay her bills. I noticed the other day, she was working her way through general session court on new charges, so I will probably see her back soon.

Lastly, I had another cute girl who attracted trouble on probation. This one was on for trying to slip contriband into the local jail for her husband. She peeled seals off the tops of some chocolate milk bottles, emptied them and filled them back up with Kahlua Mud Slide, reglued the seals and put the tops back on. She just wasn't quite careful enough, and a corrections officer noticed the glue job. Anyway, she and hubbie parted ways, only they made a tape at some point. She goes over to his parents house to pay them back for some school books they bought her and find ex-hubbie showing their sex tape to his buddies. She goes berserk and wipes out a vcr, video camera, computer, printer and does some colateral damage to her co-star. She managed to destroy the only tape, so I never got to review the evidence, sigh. She got out of that, but later developed a taste for the ganja and a local bar. These are no-no's on probation. She just got placed on house arrest and moved to a half-way house.

We picked up a new trick with our female offenders. The local judges like pictures on the warrants we submit. If the offenders pick up new charges, instead of our id photos, we have started using the booking photos. This way we can show our local beauty queens what kind of impression they make after a night on the town.

Court

I lost most of last week at work. That sounds weird, especially because I did not miss a day of work, but I was in court. I am a probation and parole officer. In this state parole and probation are combined into one board. Other states may have the functions separate. In case anyone has ever wondered, probation is an alternative form of corrections. Instead of locking someone up, you monitor them and place restrictions on them, but leave them in the community and hope they are productive citizens. Parole is a similar thing, but it is available only after someone has served time in prison and convinced the parole board that they are ready to return to society. I have about 100 people on my caseload. Only about 15 are parole, most are some form of probation. There are many forms of probation and several different types of probation officers. There are 7 types of probation officers in my area. There are 3 types of misdemeanor probation officers: juvenile, general sessions, and criminal. Misdemeanor crime is handled by the county, or an agency appointed by the county and agreed to by the judge. There are 4 felony probation officer types: Federal, house arrest handled by an agency under the provision of the Board of Probation, felony handled by the board of probation and parole, and juvenile handled by a branch of the Children Services Agency. I am a felony probation officer.

You can divide most court systems into 2 parts, civil and criminal. I deal of course with the criminal side. This is also split in two. The General Sessions court is run by the county and handles most of the misdemeanor stuff. It is also where preliminary hearings come from. It is where 90% of all criminal cases come from. There are other ways to get cases to the grand jury, but it gets complicated. The other part of the system is the state part, criminal court. All felony cases end up in criminal court as well as some misdemeanors. Incidently, all crimes are classified according to the maximum punishment allowed by law. If the punishment is no more than 11 months and 29 days in jail, then it is a misdemeanor. Anything with a year or more is a felony. In my district, the judges like the probation officers to be in court on new term days, readout days, negotiation deadline days and non-jury trial days. These are the days we are most likely to pick up new cases. They are also usually the days are violation reports will be heard and we will be called to testify on any reports we might have done for the court. Anyway, Tuesday was a negotiation deadline day and I had to be in court all day. We didn't finish, so the judge called court for Wednesday, a day I had set up for field reports. I was in court most of Wednesday and had to phostphone the reporting to this week.

I only have regular court duties in my county, however there are two cases where I might have to go to court outside of my county. Suppose a resident of my county goes into another county and gets caught selling drugs or committing a burglary. When he is convicted in that county, if he gets probation, then he will be transferred to me. If I have to take him back to court later for any reason, it will be in the county of conviction. Also, if someone is convicted of a crime in another county, then moves to my county, their supervision will be transferred. Fortunately, in these rural counties, the Criminal Court Judge is a circuit judge. My 2 judges handle 7 counties so this accounts for 95 percent of my cases. It is when we get into another judicial district and I have to deal with strange judges, that I get nervous. No two judges do things the same way.

Anyway, court is usually interesting and I will try to relay some good stories later, since anything in court is an open record, I think I am safe. Unfortunately I have to be careful what I tell you about other aspects of work, because I deal with some confidential information. Anyway, I had 1 case before another county court and it wasn't heard until 5:00 PM Thurdsay, so I lost 3/5 th's of my week. Man am I behind. I have to go to yet another county court Monday for 1 case. Yippeee!!!

Anyway, so tips for surviving if you ever have to appear before a criminal court judge in the state of Tennessee:

1. Dress up, preferably in clean clothes. No shorts, no untucked t-shirts, no miniskirts, no belly shirts, no trailer-trash, disco queen, night club makeup.

2. No chewing gum.

3. No chewing tabacco.

4. No intoxication bevorages or mind-altering drugs before court, you might want your wits about you.

5. Please use the following appropriate phrases when addressing the judge, Your Honor, Sir or Ma'am, thank you and please.

6. Do not laugh, smile, smirk, act cocky, ect.

7. Do not act bored.

8. Remember, this person is going to control what happens to your butt for the next installment of your life, he deserves respect, attention, and you taking him seriously, or at least appearing to. If you piss him off, he does not have to accept any deal your lawyer and the da worked out. He is the ultimate earthly authority, there aren't too many places you can go to complain if he tosses your butt in the clink.

What a weekend!!!

What a weekend, and I don't mean that in a good way. To explain, I might want to mention that I am married, but I married relatively late in life and I robbed the cradle. My wife is 13 years younger than me. My wife and I are in most ways opposites. I grew up in a small town in Tennessee.I only left the state a handful of times. I am quite, a fairly private person, even this blog is a stretch for me. I like my privacy and my alone time. I have 1 sister. My favorite pasttimes are solo or done in very small groups. I have a lot of aquaintances, but only a few really good friends. My wife's family travelled a lot and she has lived all over the US. She has 3 sisters and 2 brothers, and a friend that her parents raised as a daughter. She is noisy and the life of the party. She hates being alone and loves large groups. She has tons of friends, but none are what I would consider a true friend.

Anyway, my wife's mother was a professional jockey. Her father trained thoroughbred racehorses. They moved from track to track most of her life, although they settled in various areas periodically then moved on. It was the sort of situation where the horses got fed whether the kids did or not. Her childhood sounds horrible and alien to me, but it's what she's known. Anyway her father lost his trainer's license over some business deal and they had to quit the track. They eventually all ended up down here with jobs as contract parts inspectors for factories. The hours are killer, but the pay is very good. They rent a 20+ acre farm and have a few horses, goats, chickens, cats and dogs. They followed their oldest daughter here. My wife refers to this woman as the cow. She is 2 years older than my wife. She has an excellent work ethic, but the morals of a psycho alley cat. More later when I astound the world with As The Trailer Park Turns. Anyway they brought my wife's two younger sisters and younger brother. The eldest child is a boy, he just turned 30. Then the cow, then wifeypoo, then a brother, 20, a sister, 18, and lastly a sister, 13. It gets really weird on birthdays. I will relate more later.

My wife followed them here a little later and a few months more and we met.

My wife's father is in charge of the family. My wife has spent her entire life trying to gain his attention and respect. She has always felt that she was less loved than her older siblings. As a result, she has always jumped when he said frog. She has always placed his wishes above all else, including me. This of course, has led to a few fights. It has also caused her to lose at least 1 job. Her father has no concern for anyone else's needs or feelings and doens't even seem to notice what he is doing to here. I tolerate a lot and try to be supportive, because someone has to be there to pick up the pieces when his unreasonable expectations and lack of appreciation take their inevitable toal. She will tear herself appart to try to get approval. Incidentally, there is no competition here. None, I repeat, none of the other kids are this way. They are the polar opposites and won't do anything except sponge off the parents. The two boys are out of the state with good jobs and mostly stay away. The youngest girl still lives at home, however the other 2 sisters both have families, sort of. My wife is actually the only dependable person in the group. As a result, her father loads her down with all sorts of junk to do. He even hired her for a few months, although he way underpaid her and they ended up fighting.
She way undercharged him for the hours also. If I bring home a folder to work on at night I get griped at. "Why are you doing that? You aren't getting paid for it!" But if her father called and she spent 2 hours on the phone and internet tracking stuff down, it was different.

Anyway, my father-in-law started worrying because his landlord wanted to sel l the farm. He tried to get the financing to buy it, but couldn't. I hooked him up with a mortgage broker who came up with a sweet deal. Low interest, low downpayment, and working the overtime they work working, they could afford double payment. They could have owned the place in under 10 years. They never followed through.

My wife spent countless hours on the phone and internet, and she tracked down and fixed the problem with my father-in-laws trainer's license. Now he had hooked up with some breeders and had been breaking and training some thoroughbreds for them. He was also housing some paso finos for almost enough money to pay the rent. Without his license, he could not take the horses to a track or enter them in a race. Now the excretment strikes the rotary cooling device.

We are in Tennessee, with no gambling allowed. Kentucky isn't really that far from here. A four hour drive will put you close to three horse racing tracks. They made several week-end track trips last summer and spent their vacation at a track. Last winter a run of bad luck strikes. My mother-in-law flies to Washington state to spend her birthday with her mother and brother, the three rarely get to spend time together. This costs $$$. Then she comes back and takes the youngest girl to Washington D.C. for a karate tournament. More $$$$. Then she gets thrown off a horse and hurts her leg. She can't work for 2 weeks. Then he gets sick and misses a week or more of work. They save no money. But suddenly this summer, they pack up 10 horses, the youngest girl, quit the job and go to the track. It was only supposed to be for 30 days. It has been almost 90. They left my wife with the farm to keep up. She was working a full-time 3rd shift job. I work a full-time 1st shift job. Now we have to drive all the way across the county everyday and work for a few hours. To make a long story less long, they have little money coming in, they are not home, they have little money saved.

My wife ended up quitting her job. We have had to buy food for the animals out of our pockets. We have to travel over there every day. He is behind in all his bills. We have managed to keep the power and water on, but for how long I don't know. The landlord has lost his job, so he wants to sell the place fast. Now he has raised the price. My mother-in-law was kicked by one of the horses and broke her arm. My wife is stressed to the gills. She can't believe they have gotten in this position and she blames herself. She sees them loosing everything. And they still won't come home. To make matters worse, my father-in-law just told my wife he might need her to come out to the track to help him since her mother was hurt. I had to hide the guns. She was running around screaming "His is trying to kill us all!!!!!"

I also tried to wear disposable contacts too long and got a nasty eye infection in my right eye.

Problems with Strays

I have a lot of problems with strays. I have a tendancy to want to pick up and help any stray animal that comes along. On the other hand my wife picks up stray people to help. She is a natural-born social worker and I've tried to get her to apply for a job with human services, so we could at least get some money out of this tendancy of hers, but she won't. I would help if my wife didn't pick the absolute bottom of the barrel, lost cause, take-em-out-to-the-woodshed-and-shoot-em, no hope cases to try to fix.

Case in point is the whiner. This is a lady she met on a former job. Put my wife in a room with 29 normal, well-adjusted people (is there such a creature?) and 1 psycho and guess who she'll make friends with. Anyway they started eating lunch together. Most of the time my wife bought lunch for them both as the woman never had any money. I don't know that she ever bought my wife lunch. She also had a habit of borrowing small amounts of money that I don't believe she ever paid back. Anyway this woman was divorced, surprise. She also had 2 children that her former husband had custody of. Now this is the Southern part of the US. We are conservative and non-progressive. It is still very rare for the man to get custody of the children in a divource if the wife is alive and unicarcerated. Anyway she whines and whines about how she never gets to see her kids and how they are getting so big and she is missing out on their lives and everything. This goes on for months at work and on line through IM, so my wife finally springs into action.

Using the knowledge she gained from listening to the whiner, my wife knew that the boy was on his elementary school basketball team and the girl was a cheerleader. My wife then did the following extremely complicated actions. 1. She called the elementary school where the kids were enrolled. (this required the use of a phone and phonebook). 2. She asked when the next home game was. 3. She wrote the information on a piece of paper. 4. She called and arranged to pick the woman up and take her to the game. (Note: none of this should have been beyond the capabilities of the Whiner to do on her own.)

Do you want to know what happened. When the day came to go to the game, the Whiner suddenly had to go to her mother's and could not make it to the game. I tried to explain to my wife that the woman didn't really want help or out of her situation, she just wanted people to feel sorry for her and let her skate along. I also tried to explain that if people won't help themselves, you can't help them. This was just one of several things she tried to do to help the woman, but for some reason the woman never followed through on anything. I know it hurt my soft-hearted wife a lot, which hurts me.

By the way, my home is currently being destroyed by this mother cat and her 8 extremely cute kittens I found playing in the road on my way home the other day, anyone need a pet?