Ob-la-di, ob-la-da

The morning began with me getting to the office early so I could move a client's truck from a parking spot in the back to a spot along the street. He had been taken into custody the day before and I offered to get his truck so it didn't end up being towed.

A few minutes after nine o'clock I walked up to the criminal courthouse and was shocked by the long lines snaking around the corners of the building. My first thought was there are going to be an awful lot of bond forfeitures today. Of course I also knew that if the lines outside were bad the lines for the elevators must be terrible. Yep.

Later I was in Judge Harmon's court when a colleague of mine asked the court coordinator where on the trial list his case was. She told him to check with the prosecutors because they had been discussing the trial docket with the judge the day before. No one batted an eye. I could only stop and wonder about what else was brought up during those discussions.

Next it was off to another courtroom to get a new bond set for a client who had been taken into custody the day before. The judge, who had indicated he was leaning toward setting a high bond, told me he was going to reinstate my client's bond with the condition that he be fitted with a SCRAM device within a few days of being released. This was the best news of the day - except that my client somehow never made it from the jail to the courtroom due to a screw-up at the Grey Bar Hilton. Another day in custody awaited.

Then I get a call from my wife who told me she ran a gauntlet of police cars on her way home after lunch. She turned up a side street to avoid a nasty intersection by our house. As she drove up the street she saw a police officer standing in the street holding something. As she got closer she saw that the something was a rifle. She rolled down her window to ask what was going on and the officer told her she just needed to turn and keep going. It turned out that the police were searching for two young men who allegedly shot and killed another young man in what they think was gang activity.

And life just goes on...