Multiconstruct

This year it looks like 6 people I know are going to be locked up for the holidays; four in jail, two in Prison, and one on a psych unit. Respectively they didn’t complete their sex offender class, operated a meth lab, hit their ex-wife and step-daughter and fled the police, didn’t follow up with drug court, didn’t follow through with mental health court, tried to kill their ex-husband, and punched their mom. They’re all great people in difficult circumstances and I like five of them a lot. About half of them unfortunately needs to be locked up for a minute. One that doesn’t got sentenced to 10 years last week and won’t be eligible for parole for 8 ½. It happened and it sucks. I testified for the defense and felt I was effective in extremely difficult circumstances. The judge was a piece of work, wouldn’t let any witness say much, did most of the questioning himself, called his own witness, dismissed witnesses before the defense was finished, it was a piece of work. The sentencing report based on a standardized formula of priors and life circumstances recommended probation, but the judge scolded them for not giving him any useful information. The judge said the normal sentence for that crime was 5-15 years, the prosecution asked for 15 and the defense asked for 120 days shock and parole. Their was a lot of media attention on the case and the judge might have been pressured to look tough in the face of his recent drunk driving arrest. Maybe he was always that way. A court official said we had done well, that he was leaning toward 15 and was never much one for listening. He said it would break down the very fabric of our society if wives were allowed to try to kill their husbands. Maybe he is right, but I’ve seen enough cases of guys walking for trying to kill their wives and society isn’t crumbling around our heads except as much as it is. Nonetheless it was a sad fucking affair. There was one short questioning by the prosecution that I wish I would have handled better or at least gone back too during rebuttal and made the full point, but I felt on a very short leash of what I would be allowed to say and didn’t think I would get to volunteer anything. So with all these folks locked up for the holidays I at least visited a few of them this week and wrote one of them as well. Julie’s blog had a random act of kindness day for bloggers and that is as close as this tired social worker is going to get. In 2 hours vacation. I hope to post from NV and AZ with lots of fresh and interesting travel stories. Happy Holidays.