100% Conviction Rate

I LOVE being in court! Even better to have a trial! And best yet, to get a conviction! :) Today in court was so much fun. The only bad thing is that we were finished with everything by 11am. I would not have minded having another hour of things to do.

This was my second trial. I was supposed to have one last month, but the defendant changed his plea to guilty at the last possible second. I was so happy when this defendant today showed up. She actually did a nice job representing herself, but I saw the flaws in her case and was able to make them very evident to the judge.

First of all, the charge was for building a campfire while a restriction was in place. The ranger found a fire at the defendant's campsite, and when he could not locate anyone, put it out. He returned later in the day to find the defendant there, and she claimed responsibility for the fire.

She tried to say that even though she had a fire permit (which clearly states it is not valid when restrictions are in place, and that is the holder's responsibility to determine the current restrictions in effect), she believed that the location of their campsite was exempt from the restrictions. She had printed out a page from the US Forest Service's web site showing that there were no restrictions for sites above 4000' elevation, and another page showing the location of her campsite to be 4900'. My heart skipped a beat. I hadn't known that.

She proceeded to show that the Forest Service web site wasn't updated since June 2007, so she tried to blame that as why she didn't comply with the restriction.

My turn. First, I showed that the date of her violation was September 15, and a reasonable person would believe that after a long, dry summer, the restrictions may have changed. A phone call would be a better way to determine the current restrictions than relying on an out of date website. (You gotta love the old "reasonable person"!)

Secondly, even though she claimed to have checked the website BEFORE her camping trip, I questioned the ranger who testified that she asked him about where she could find out about restrictions AFTER being ticketed. And I showed that the date she printed out the restriction on the website was the date AFTER she returned from her camping trip. She had no proof she had actually checked into the status of restrictions at all.

Finally, knowing that there were several violations the ranger could have cited her for, but didn't, I asked him to tell us about that. He said he could have cited her for leaving a campfire unattended. While the defendant did apparently put dirt on the fire, she did not extinguish it completely in the required "drowning" method.

When the defendant admitted to that, and went on to tell the judge that she had done everything she could to be responsible about the fire and in trying to find out the restrictions, he called her on it.

Judge- "You just told me that you left the fire unattended."

Defendant- "Yes, but that's not what I was ticketed for."

Judge- "But you just told me you did everything responsibly, in regards to that fire. If you left a fire unattended, you weren't responsible."

BOOOOOYAH! That was pretty sweet. The judge declared her guilty and made my day!

One other little thing, one case we had, the guy is already in jail until May 2008. I had called around and was able to confirm this with his sister, and was supposed to tell the court his whereabouts today. After I did, I suggested that we possibly calendar this for June when he is out. The judge looked at the case and made a comment about it only being a trespassing case, suggesting in his tone that we just dismiss it. So I suggested that, and added, "Merry Christmas to the defendant" (in a funny, not sarcastic way). The judge smiled and repeated it, but then added, since the defendant will still be in jail, not sure how merry it will really be.

Anyway, was a fun morning. Just wish I spent more time in court.