From: srm@world.std.com (Stevens R Miller)
Subject: Call for War Stories
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 17:31:00 GMT

I'm going to collect legal war stories.  If you're a lawyer or have been
a party to a legal proceeding that yielded a good war story, e-mail it
to me.  I'd like to edit together the best ones, and make them available
to the public.  I disclaim any profit motive, and promise anonymity.

Here's one of my favorite war stories:  I'm doing arraignments in
night court, and a herd of hookers comes up for soliciting charges.  This
is a grade B misdemeanor, and they always plead guilty at arraignment, in
return for time served (usually less than a day, though sometimes overnight).
They all tend to have enormous rap sheets, because they can get arrested
almost every week.  A judge will give time served because there just isn't
space in the prisons to hold all the hookers; maybe if someone shows up
three times in the same week, she'll get some time.  The hookers all know
the drill, so I go over to the corner where they're waiting, with each of
their file folders in my arm.  "Ms. Smith, time served okay?  Ms. Garcia, time
served okay?"  And so forth.  Each one nods, because they just want to get
back on the street, and they hate this whole process with a deep loathing.
I get to the last one, and she is a nineteen year-old kid, with no prior
arrests on her sheet.  Probably, she is a runaway and this is her first
time through the system.  Earlier, before court began, I had found the
prosecutor and done something questionable.  I promised him guilty pleas on
all the other girls, with none of the usual motions for dismissal on
procedural defects or any of the other horseshit that usually accompanies
these things, *if* he'd agree to an "adjournment in contemplation of
dismissal" (we just say "ACD") for the nineteen year-old.  Mr. Hitler-youth
grudgingly agrees.  So I get to her last, and she says, "yeah, yeah, I know
what to do; I'm pleading guilty, right?"  So I sat down with her and said,
"no, you're not pleading anything.  I got you what we call an ACD, which
means if you don't get arrested again for six months, it will be like this
never happened.  You can even say you weren't arrested this time, because
that's what the records will say."  She blinks at me and just says, "okay."
As I'm looking at her, I'm hoping her first night in jail will be the reason
she needs not to go back to her pimp; that by avoiding a criminal record, I
deprive him of the "now you got nothing to lose" reason he'll want to use,
to get her back out onto the street.  I'm hoping this, but not expecting it.
As I get up to go report back to my boss, and process the herd in front of
the judge, one of the other hookers (who were all listening to this) says,
"She's gettin' a freebie?"  I said, "yeah, cause it's her first time."  The
hooker says, "shit, I didn't get no freebie on my first time."  I just
shrugged and went back to my boss.  I told her what the hooker had said to
me.  She thought for a moment, and then looked at me and said, "why don't you
go back there and ask her how many of her johns got freebies on *their* first
times?"

-- 
Stevens R. Miller, J.D.		Electronic Frontier Foundation Member 932
				Republican National Committee Member 90050367
				Amateur Radio Station WA4LDA