I was talking to a coach who I worked with years ago and he brought up the time he and I, along with another coach, were sued. Two other coaches and myself were being sued by some people at a game where things got out of hand because of things weren’t going well for their team. So, when we got papers served to us, plus the club, meetings with the organization’s attorney got us concerned. We didn’t get much sleep and nothing seemed to sit well, meal after meal.
One of the wives sensed something was going on, and her husband finally broke down and told her.
She sent her husband a VHS video of a movie that had a courtroom seen at the end of it. After watching that, going into court didn’t seem all that bad.
In any event, the charges were dropped against us.
If you could use a good laugh, here’s what we watched. I found a portion of that movie on YouTube. Enjoy.
Unfortunately, my previous profession required regular attendance in the Commonwealth Court of Common Pleas, otherwise known to me as the Circus Under the Big Top.
It got so, I tried everything to avoid court. But making no arrests seemed like a poor solution to the problem for a detective.
In order to preserve my sanity, I adopted a strategy of investigation that exhausted every possible line of defense for the defendant. Soon, my cases were being handled quietly behind closed doors and I wasn’t being dragged into court kicking and screaming near as often.
By the end of my career, I was carrying a quarter around in my pocket and would pull it out before trial saying to the District Attorney, “Heads or Tails?”
Just yesterday, a jury acquitted a murder defendant of a shotgun slaying and torching of the victim’s body with flammable liquid. The container for the flammable liquid found at the scene had the defendant’s DNA on the handle.
Many lawyers and most judges take the whole thing way too seriously. Every time the Bailiff would pronounce,“All rise, the Honourable …presiding” - I would hear, “Ladies and Gentlemen, in the middle ring…under the Big Top”