Dust. Wind. Dude.

One of My Guys who was up for a booze-related PV up and pulled a Richard Kimble.

He spends all the jail time before his hearing researching different treatment options, writing letters to the judge and his CO about how he had turned a corner. He gets a reservation for a bed at a halfway house. He lines up a job. The jail's addiction intervention counselor offers to be My Guy's AA sponsor, and even gives My Guy his home phone number. My Guy's on the phone with me every third day to make sure make sure he's got addiction support when he hits the streets. His talk of getting out of jail is secondary to his declarations that what he really wants is to be sober. I put in extra time to make sure I'm doing everything I can for him.

My Guy shows up at his PVH with his ducks in a row and duplicates of all his paperwork. He locks eyes with the judge and tells her he wants the chance to prove to her that he can turn his life around. He adds that he will understand if she decides he doesn't deserve another chance, and he's prepared to serve the rest of his probation in the tank. The judge reinstates him, and as the bailiff leads him away, he gives me a firm handshake and genuinely thanks me for helping him. My vision gets all misty and I am filled with the joy that comes with helping a prodigal return.

And then he disappears. By the following day, nobody has heard from him -- not his CO, not his UA tester, not his AA sponsor, not the head of the halfway house, not the manager at his job, and certainly not me. The phone messages I leave throughout the county might as well have been left for the tooth fairy. Magistrate Court has started throwing his bench warrants around like parade candy.

Damn.

Magistrate hell

Becoming a small-town PD has afforded me a challenge I didn't anticipate: protecting the rights of my clients from crazy, unconstant, arbitrary, thick-skulled, bigoted bullies known as lay magistrate judges.

Consider if you will, one particularly lucid justification for a probation revocation: "I know some folks say you're retarded, but you really need to think about the consequences of your actions." My functionally retarded client got eight months in jail to "think about" the fact that he can't remember to check in with his compliance officer. Unbe-fucking-lievable.