Fall break update

Life has been much more relaxed this semester, but I have still managed to keep busy. I am currently on Fall Break, so I decided to take the time to post an update.

I will begin by giving “the rest of the story” on the items from the previous post.

First, I wrote about a suppression motion I was arguing about. Shortly after the last post I had an actual hearing where I was able to present my arguments before the judge as to why the evidence of intoxication should not be suppressed. At the hearing the defendant decided he wanted to submit a memo in support of his side, so the judge took the case under advisement. Her ruling came out a few weeks ago… and she found in the state’s favor. His trial has not yet happened, but when it has I will update everyone as to the results.

As far as the first jury trial, I kind of found out why the jury went with the lesser included offense of inattentive instead of the initial charge of reckless driving. In speaking with two of the jurors, they gave me conflicting stories as to what had been discussed. One of them said they wanted to ignore the law and use their own definition of reckless driving to determine if the guy was guilty of that. Although this is frustrating for the lawyers, it is perfectly legal for a jury to ignore the law. (We actually tell jurors they can’t ignore the law, but then we don’t ask them to justify what they have done. When jurors choose to ignore the law we call it jury nullification.) The other juror I spoke to told me they were concerned with the guy losing his license and ending up on welfare if they found him guilty of reckless driving. (His business required him to drive constantly.) Once again, the jury is told to ignore the punishment because that is out of their hands, but there is nothing we can do to stop it.

I did have a second trial, but it was not the one I thought it would be. I was scheduled to have a trial against a guy charged with a DUI who was representing himself, but he decided not to show up to court that day.

The trial I actually had involved a drug DUI. The guy was driving under the influence of drugs, not alcohol. These trials are not as straightforward as regular DUI trials because you have to show that his ability to drive was impaired by the drugs in his system. With a DUI based on alcohol you only have to show the blood alcohol content was above .08. The trial was scheduled for my last day of work, but it ended up taking two full days. (Jenny was not happy about having to stay an extra day.) After about an hour of deliberations the jury found him guilty. (He was also found guilty of three counts of injury to child since 3 little girls were in the car.)

In school I am currently taking four classes. They are income taxation, separation of powers, advanced trial practice, and basic accounting for lawyers. I will write more about these classes in a later entry.

On the homefront, things have been going pretty well. Zadik is mobile, but he is not satisfied with crawling around. He only crawls the minimal amount he has to until he reaches something he can pull himself up on. Then he stands up and get a huge grim. The only problem is that he oftentimes gets interested in something and reaches for it with both hands. You can guess what happens when he does that. He is also an eating machine. He eats three solid meals a day, and constantly begs for more at the dinner table. He is just about to outgrow his rear facing carseat, which is bad since he needs to be in it for the next 4 months.

Alise is hard to sum up in less than a thousand words. She has so many different interests right now. She loves to go to the park and climb up the rock wall. She loves to ride her tricycle all around. She loves to read the cat in the hat. She loves to watch scary dinosaur movies with daddy (Jurassic Park). She loves to cut up paper with her big girl scissors. She loves to go on dates with daddy. She hardly ever has accidents anymore (ignoring the incident where she peed in mommy and daddy’s bed an hour ago).

Alise also told her first joke yesterday. For a month or so I have been playing this game where I call her a funny name before I kiss her goodnight. For example, I will say “night night sprinklerhead,” and she will say “I not sprinklerhead daddy, I Alise!” The other night I said “night night button-hole,” to which she replied “I not butt hole daddy, I Alise.” I laughed for a long time after that one. A couple days after that I said “night night alternator” and she replied “I not alternator daddy, I butt hole.” I don’t know where she gets it…

I am in the process of making a DVD of the videos we have been shooting over the last several months. With school picking up, it is unlikely that this will be completed before Christmas break, but it is in the works. I will also try to find the time to add a slideshow of family pictures to this blog at that time.

Alise just woke up from her nap, so I am going to have to cut this short so I can go make some cookies with my daughter.

Until next time, enjoy life (and vote Obama!)