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So today I had to head to juvenile court for the trial of W, one of the two kids arrested for stealing my trike. (The other kid has already plea bargained.) S called me at 7:05 am, right after I broke the coffeemaker.
"I just got off the freeway."
"I broke the coffeemaker!"
This might have daunted most other individuals, but he showed up anyway, although matters were a bit delayed as we stopped at a 7-11 for emergency coffee supplies. Then it was off to the juvenile court.
Orange County has created a large and spacious and oddly chilling juvenile detention center that desperately needs more pictures. (Right now it has a couple of sad posters explaining how easy it is to get into trouble and why you shouldn't panic if you're pregnant or leave a baby in a dumpster.) It is a detention center that is, not incidentally, nowhere near Winter Garden. Our attempt to beat rush hour traffic was so successful that we arrived phenomenally early, so we retreated to a Panera Bread for more liquid refreshments, then returned.
Actually getting into the place proved a bit exciting, for the expected reasons of needing to confirm my Tramadol/Ultram prescription (apparently this is a hot item in juvenile) and getting patted down since I was in a wheelchair, and the completely less expected reason that S had brought along a very suspicious item: gaming dice. You can never tell what a gamer will be doing with dice…
As it turns out, Orange County has developed a simple method for scheduling juvenile cases: all of them, without exception, are scheduled for 8:30 am, and then the various judges pick and choose which case they will try next.
Yep. We thought the exact same thing.
So, not surprisingly, the courtroom was too full for us to get into, so we milled around for a bit until the public defender for the case came up and chatted with me. Then the victim's advocate person came up and chatted with me and told me that the public defender wasn't supposed to be chatting with me. Oh well. So to halt all the chatter she sent us to a little uncomfortable lobby nowhere near the bathrooms, where we met up with the cop who had found my trike and another woman, B, who was there as a witness for W's second trial of the day. About three months ago, W, a former friend of B's kids, had allegedly broken into B's house and stolen a $4000 work computer, dashed off with it, only to find that the computer was thoroughly password protected and he couldn't get on it. In a moment of computer frustration many of us can understand, he then punched right through the screen, and then realized that he'd also taken something else: the keys to a truck.
"I couldn't imagine that anybody would be dumb enough to return to the same house where he'd just taken a computer and steal a truck –"
But indeed, W allegedly had, driving the truck over to Lake County, which then caused some procedural issues which I'll skip for now.
(This is separate from the cop car incident and a few other matters.)
As you can imagine, this led to some cheery conversations, but, juvenile crime, as a topic, only lasts so long, so eventually, between wondering if a kid's pants were about to drop off (as B noted, the pants were held up solely as an act of defiance against gravity) S and I ended up playing Sudoku and waiting and waiting and then taking the long trip to the bathroom and returning to find the DA explaining that the truck/computer theft trial was on continuance but we were still on. So, we entered the courtroom, and waited and waited and then waited. I couldn't help but notice that Law and Order leaves all of the waiting part out which does certainly help to keep things more interesting.
The judge entered and told a nice joke about tribbles.
And then, after more waiting –
Continuance.
Which means I get to do this ALL OVER AGAIN in another month or so. But hopefully, this time with a working coffeemaker.
"I just got off the freeway."
"I broke the coffeemaker!"
This might have daunted most other individuals, but he showed up anyway, although matters were a bit delayed as we stopped at a 7-11 for emergency coffee supplies. Then it was off to the juvenile court.
Orange County has created a large and spacious and oddly chilling juvenile detention center that desperately needs more pictures. (Right now it has a couple of sad posters explaining how easy it is to get into trouble and why you shouldn't panic if you're pregnant or leave a baby in a dumpster.) It is a detention center that is, not incidentally, nowhere near Winter Garden. Our attempt to beat rush hour traffic was so successful that we arrived phenomenally early, so we retreated to a Panera Bread for more liquid refreshments, then returned.
Actually getting into the place proved a bit exciting, for the expected reasons of needing to confirm my Tramadol/Ultram prescription (apparently this is a hot item in juvenile) and getting patted down since I was in a wheelchair, and the completely less expected reason that S had brought along a very suspicious item: gaming dice. You can never tell what a gamer will be doing with dice…
As it turns out, Orange County has developed a simple method for scheduling juvenile cases: all of them, without exception, are scheduled for 8:30 am, and then the various judges pick and choose which case they will try next.
Yep. We thought the exact same thing.
So, not surprisingly, the courtroom was too full for us to get into, so we milled around for a bit until the public defender for the case came up and chatted with me. Then the victim's advocate person came up and chatted with me and told me that the public defender wasn't supposed to be chatting with me. Oh well. So to halt all the chatter she sent us to a little uncomfortable lobby nowhere near the bathrooms, where we met up with the cop who had found my trike and another woman, B, who was there as a witness for W's second trial of the day. About three months ago, W, a former friend of B's kids, had allegedly broken into B's house and stolen a $4000 work computer, dashed off with it, only to find that the computer was thoroughly password protected and he couldn't get on it. In a moment of computer frustration many of us can understand, he then punched right through the screen, and then realized that he'd also taken something else: the keys to a truck.
"I couldn't imagine that anybody would be dumb enough to return to the same house where he'd just taken a computer and steal a truck –"
But indeed, W allegedly had, driving the truck over to Lake County, which then caused some procedural issues which I'll skip for now.
(This is separate from the cop car incident and a few other matters.)
As you can imagine, this led to some cheery conversations, but, juvenile crime, as a topic, only lasts so long, so eventually, between wondering if a kid's pants were about to drop off (as B noted, the pants were held up solely as an act of defiance against gravity) S and I ended up playing Sudoku and waiting and waiting and then taking the long trip to the bathroom and returning to find the DA explaining that the truck/computer theft trial was on continuance but we were still on. So, we entered the courtroom, and waited and waited and then waited. I couldn't help but notice that Law and Order leaves all of the waiting part out which does certainly help to keep things more interesting.
The judge entered and told a nice joke about tribbles.
And then, after more waiting –
Continuance.
Which means I get to do this ALL OVER AGAIN in another month or so. But hopefully, this time with a working coffeemaker.
