Diameter: 4

Joe Phillips walked into a mini-mart and demanded that the owner give him some shoes (shoes are sold there behind the counter). The owner would not comply, so Joe walked behind the counter, brandished a knife, and started rummaging through things. He chose some shoes and walked out the door. He changed his mind five or so minutes later, returned to the store, put the shoes up on the counter, and sat on the curb. The police showed up and arrested him for armed robbery. On the day his trial was scheduled several months ago, Joe showed up without any shoes. I sent Joe to the state hospital to be evaluated, and he was deemed incompetent. After being put on the proper medication, Joe is doing much better. Today we were in court and Joe pled to a reduced charge and received two years in prison.

Joe was probably the fourth craziest person I had today.

Coming in third was Buffy. She was back in court today for her pending drug charge. She actually showed up, which was rather impressive. As I stood up to do her plea, I realized that she was not in the courtroom. Her mother informed me that nerves caused her to run to the bathroom and get sick. She was in the bathroom for over an hour. I thought the judge was going to send deputies into the restroom to fetch her. Finally, she emerged. We entered her plea, and she is off to do six months in prison.

Not a good day for my clients, now that I think about it.

The second craziest person I had was George Coney. George is not altogether there. Some days he is incapable of speaking. Other days he is incapable of shutting up. Unfortunately, on those days he has no idea what he is talking about. I imagine that he will be the subject of posts to come as it looks like we are going to try his case sometime this week. The facts of his case are these: cops send informant to buy heroin from George, informant buys and tells police where George is parked, police surround George's car and try to get him to come out of the car, George surges forward and rams one of the police cars, police pull George out of the vehicle and there are ten bags of heroin on the driver's seat, the two marked twenties that the informant gave to George for the heroin are found on George's person.

George wants to try the case and believes that he will be found not guilty. The plea offer calls for him to receive three months in prison and to come out on probation. If convicted, he will probably wind up doing a couple years in prison. When I asked him how I should explain away the marked bills, he responded, "None of those bills had marks on them!" I hope no one is keeping track of my won/loss record.

And that leaves Ghandi McJesus. Ghandi assures me that he is a British secret agent. Ghandi had the good fortune to appear in front of Judge Cribble. Judge Cribble asked him what his rank or something was. Ghandi responds, "I am level 6. Clearance 27. Rated 3A. Latitude 45. Diameter 4...." He went on from there. I still can't get over "diameter: 4." That is one of the greatest things I have ever heard someone utter in court.