Now THIS was COOL!

Oh my gosh, I LOVE MY JOB! Today might have been the most cool experience I have had there to date (and considering I have already had and won a trial in federal district court, you have to know this is a good one!). Thursday mornings is the regular misdemeanor calendar and some weeks are busier than others. Today was a very full day with 14 cases. Even though 8 were mine and 6 belong to my cohort, I appeared on all 14 since he was out ill today. It took until noon to get through 13 of them and the judge ordered the motion I was to argue for 2pm.

Most of my job involves a lot of standard stuff- filing charging documents, sending discovery, writing and negotiating plea agreements, making routine court appearances. I don't often get the opportunity to actually do legal research and write motions or briefs. However, there is a new federal defender who is a motion-writing-machine. I'm having to reply to them, and the first one was his motion to suppress evidence obtained during a wildlife checkpoint in a national park, that he claims was unconstitutional.

The few things I have written while here have mostly been standard things that did not require any original research, but I researched and wrote the reply to the defense motion on my own from scratch. Today was the day to argue it in court.

I have never done that before, nor even attended one, so I had no idea what to expect. My boss suggested making a list of the points I wanted to make, along with ones to counter the defense's likely arguments. I did that, and also called a Park Service ranger to be on hand, in case the court wanted to hear from him.

THANK GOODNESS I DID THAT! I had no idea that the judge expected witnesses, and I had not prepared any questions. But once in court, the judge said he did not know how the checkpoints worked, and wanted testimony on that. Ok, no big deal. I called my officer as my witness, took all my notes, and went up there and did a direct exam on him from the seat of my pants (or should I say from the seat of my very short skirt?!?). Anyway, the federal defender crossed, I redirected, he recrossed, and I wrapped up with a few final last questions.

The judge went through an unpublished case that the federal defender handed him (and me). Neither one of us had mentioned it in our arguments. At first I was like NOOOOOOOO, because the case was clearly distinguishable on the facts, and I was kicking myself that I hadn't said that. But, I didn't need to. The judge went through the rules about checkpoints and showed how the one in that case didn't meet the requirements to be constitutional, but the one in my case did.

After going through an analysis, and wrapping up this 75 minute hearing, the judge denied the defense's motion to suppress. YEAH!!! : ) That was SO much fun. Kind of like moot court and criminal trial practice all wrapped into one. I LOVED IT! I wish I got to do that every day.

Anyway, the officer was so impressed by my written response and performance in court, and so appreciative of the effort I put into it. He is going to send copies of my response to a bunch of the other national parks so they can use and/or refer to it if people challenge their checkpoint programs. :) Yes, very, very cool!

So, I argued a motion in federal court, wasn't even sure what to do, had no prepared questions for my witness, but knew my law inside and out and won my case!

Damn, and now I have to go to Wills and Trusts.....