08 April 2005

Affidavit of Truthfulness

So, I'm sitting in court today waiting for my client's aggravated malicious wounding case to be called. I'd already had my traffic court case for the day and the judge rendered a punishment which kept me from taking an appeal on a legal issue (sentence was too low to risk it). I'm trying to do some work while I wait.

Then comes the most interesting case of the day. A lady walks up to the bench on a speeding charge. I wasn't paying much attention at first so I didn't hear whether she pled guilty or not guilty. However, my attention (and that of every other attorney in the court) was quickly drawn to the bench. The judge looks up from the paperwork: "What is this motion to dismiss?"

"The DA didn't answer my motion."

Judge looks through the paperwork. "The motion for an Affidavit of Truthfulness?"

"Yes"

Judge: "And there's also a writ of mandamus in here . . ."

The judge then starts to read through the papers. The prosecutor looks around like he's wondering "Who let this crazy lady in here?"

Finally, the judge starts to read sections of one of the lady's filings out loud (not sure which). All of them seem to start, "The defendant, a child of God . . ." and descend into flowery language which makes little sense.

As best I could tell the defendant filed a motion for the prosecutor to file an Affidavit of Truthfulness. When he didn't she moved for dismissal and filed a motion for a writ of mandamus to make the court order itself to dismiss the case.

Needless to say, the judge wasn't exactly thrilled by all this. She lectured the lady about being sanctioned for filing frivolous motions, found her guilty and sent her on her way.

A little while later I was talking to the prosecutor about how he hadn't filed an affidavit of truthfulness in my client's case either and therefore should drop the case. Heck, I even mentioned it to the judge when we went up to the bench. For some reason they just didn't agree that it was a sufficiently large flaw to make my client's case go away . . .

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