Bills Of Particulars In Virginia Criminal Law

A Bill of Particulars are a form of discovery in which a party seeks answers to particular questions. As I understand it, they are a widely used discovery tool in civil practice. However, for those of us who practice criminal law (at least in Virginia) it is a sort of extraordinary discovery tool available only in specific circumstances.

The primary statute which addresses bills of particulars in Virginia is Va. Code § 19.2-230:

A court of record may direct the filing of a bill of particulars at any time before trial. A motion for a bill of particulars shall be made before a plea is entered and at least seven days before the day fixed for trial and the bill of particulars shall be filed within such time as is fixed by the court.

Of course, that doesn't really tell us anything outside of the scheduling of such a motion. T actually find the parameters within which bill can be filed we have to look (1) to case law, and (2) cases involving certain constitutional issues under Va Code § 19.2-266.2.

(1) CASE LAW

The appellate courts in Virginia have not viewed bills of this types favorably and the general rule is that they are only available if the defendant cannot determine what he is charged with under the indictment.

The purpose of a bill of particulars is to state sufficient facts regarding the crime to inform an accused in advance of the offense for which he is to be tried. He is entitled to no more. However, when the statutory language does not in itself fully and clearly set forth all material elements of the offense, a trial court may direct the filing of a bill of particulars. The decisive consideration in each case is whether the matter claimed to be left out of the indictment has resulted in depriving an accused of a substantial right and subjects him to the danger of being tried upon a charge for which he has not been indicted.  Sims v. Commonwealth, 28 Va.App. 611 (1998).

The purpose of a bill of particulars is to state sufficient facts regarding the crime to inform an accused in advance of the offense for which he is to be tried. He is entitled to no more.  Swisher v. Commonwealth, 256 Va. 471 (1998).

Practically, this lays out two circumstances in which a bill of particulars is allowed. (a) First, an indictment could reference a statute which references a common law crime (a regular occurrence in Virginia). (b) Second, the indictment could reference a statute which contains more than one offense.

(a) Referencing Common Law

Reason Needed:  The first situation is commonplace in Virginian law. For instance, there is no statutory definition of larceny. Therefore, an indictment for grand larceny is charged under Va. Code § 18.2-95:

Any person who (i) commits larceny from the person of another of money or other thing of value of $5 or more, (ii) commits simple larceny not from the person of another of goods and chattels of the value of $200 or more, or (iii) commits simple larceny not from the person of another of any firearm, regardless of the firearm's value, shall be guilty of grand larceny, punishable by imprisonment in a state correctional facility for not less than one nor more than twenty years or, in the discretion of the jury or court trying the case without a jury, be confined in jail for a period not exceeding twelve months or fined not more than $2,500, either or both.

There are some elements above which added to the common law elements of larceny make the theft a grand larceny (felony), but nothing actually defines larceny. Therefore, if (1) you can stand in front of a judge with a straight face and say that you need a bill of particulars because you don't know what elements the prosecutor plans to prove in order to establish larceny, and (2) the judge believes you, then (3) you should get a bill of particulars. More realistically, this should probably apply to more obscure common law being indicted under a statute. An example of this might be if the prosecution indicted misprision of a felony under the misdemeanor catch-all statute Va Code
§ 18.2-12 (any misdemeanor without a set punishment is a lass one misdemeanor). A typical defense attorney would probably not know the elements of that offense and therefore a bill of particulars would make sense. 

What Should Be Allowed:  Under this allowance of a bill, a defense attorney should only be entitled to a list of elements which the prosecutor plans to prove in order to prove the offense. There would not be a need for any factual/evidentiary disclosure to tell the defendant the elements of the offense he is accused under.

(b) More Than One Offense Under the Statute

 Reason Needed:  Again, this is a common occurrence under Virginia's statutes (I imagine this happens everywhere and particularly in the federal system where a "short" statute only fills two pages and has 14 sections). Take the above grand larceny statute for example. A person can be convicted of a felony if $5+ is taken from a person, $200+ is stolen generally, or a firearm is taken. Suppose a defendant is charged generally with "grand larceny as per the elements of ancient common law and the requirements of Va Code § 18.2-95." The defense could move the court for a bill of particulars to determine which of the three elements the felony statute the prosecution is going to rely upon and he should be entitled to the bill.

What Should Be Allowed:  In this case, a bill of particulars would more accurately be called a "bill of winnowing." The prosecutor should be required to choose which element she intends to go forward under. Again, there would be no need to have any factual/evidentiary disclosures in order to tell the defendant exactly what he is being charged with.

 

(2)  CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

In general, Va Code § 19.2-266.2 is a statute stating that requires written defense motions to be filed 7 days before trial and be argued at least three days before trial. Under subsection A it lays out those areas to which this applies:  (i) suppression of evidence on Fourth, Fifth or Sixth Amendments grounds, (ii) dismissal for violation of speedy trial, (iii) dismissal for double jeopardy, or (iv) dismissal because the statute is unconstitutional.  Then, in subsection C. it throws in bills of particulars:

To assist the defense in filing such motions or objections in a timely manner, the circuit court shall, upon motion of the defendant, direct the Commonwealth to file a bill of particulars pursuant to § 19.2-230. The circuit court shall fix the time within which such bill of particulars is to be filed. Upon further motion of the defendant, the circuit court may, upon a showing of good cause, direct the Commonwealth to supplement its bill of particulars. The attorney for the Commonwealth shall certify that the matters stated in the bill of particulars are true and accurate to the best of his knowledge and belief.

Possible Interpretations: There are two ways to interpret that statute. (i) The one which prosecutors would favor is that this section is merely directing trial courts to do what is normally done under § 19.2-230 which might be required to determine whether double jeopardy applies or whether the charge falls under the part of a statute which might be unconstitutional.  (ii) The one which defense attorneys would favor is a mandated requirement of disclosure pertaining to evidentiary matters which might pertain to the gathering of evidence that might violate the 4th, 5th, or 6th Amendment.  Surprisingly, there seems to be little precedential case law on this; the sole mention seems to be in a throw away footnote in Sims v. Commonwealth, 28 Va.App. 611 (1998)(footnote 3):

Appellant contends that Code sec. 19.2-266.2 required the court to order a bill of particulars. However, that statute operates only where the defendant seeks (1) suppression of evidence as violative of search and seizure or self-incrimination protections or (2) dismissal of an indictment "on the ground that a statute upon which it was based is unconstitutional." Appellant has not alleged any grounds to bring this statute into play. His constitutional claims relate only to the non-specificity of the indictment and do not reach the constitutionality of the underlying statutes he was charged with violating.

 While this is clearly dicta, it is the only direction given us and it limits the requirements of this statute to only three occasions: search/seizure issues, self-incrimination issues, and unconstitutionality of a statute. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and a trial court interpreting this statute after Sims recognized this and stretched the interpretation to apply to everything listed in § 19.2-266.2.  See Commonwealth v. Kuhne, 80 Va.Cir. 299 (2010). Technically, the trial judge was wrong when he broadened beyond the scope allowed by the Court of Appeals (never mind that the trial judge's interpretation makes more sense).

What Should Be Allowed: Under the dicta of Sims, the bill of particulars would be limited to evidentiary issues that pertain to search and seizure or self incrimination protections. As applied to a statute it would just require laying out the elements as per a normal § 19.2-230 bill of particulars (recall, § 19.2-266.2 does not apply to "unconstitutional as applied" arguments which therefore can and would be raised at trial after the evidence has been presented). However, keep in mind that there is no strong precedent anywhere for this and either of my two offered interpretations above could prevail in the end as well as the one offered by the Circuit Court judge.

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Calling a Juror Back to Testify About the Verdict

Can you call jurors back to testify about the way a decision was made or about how they didn't really agree, but they acquiesced because of pressure from other jurors?

No (at least not in Virginia), unless the juror is going to testify about an influence from outside the evidence provided in court.

Research that I did on this point a couple weeks back:
 

A. Lord Mansfield's Rule (Common Law Rule): 

 No inquiry allowed as to jury deliberations.

Vaise -v- Delaval, 1 T.R. 11, 99 Eng. Rep. 944 (K.B. 1785):  The court refused to receive affidavits from two jurors indicating that they had decided on their verdict by tossing a coin to resolve the issue. The court cannot receive an affidavit from a juror as to the nature of the juror’s deliberations.

B. Previous Common Law Rule (no longer in effect since 1785):

Allowed as to (1) misbehavior or (2) partiality.

 Norman v. Benmont Willes, 484, 125 Eng. Rep. 1281 (C.P 1744):  “In cases of this sort where the objection could not appear of record, we always admitted of affidavits-as in respect to a misbehavior of any of the jury, or any declaration made by any of them, either before or after the verdict to show that a jury man was partial."

B. Virginia Rule:

Steptoe v. Flood's Adm'r, 72 Va. 323 (1879):  It is certainly a general rule that affidavits of jurors to impeach their verdict should be rejected, first, because they would tend to defeat their own solemn acts under oath; second, because their admission would open a door to tamper with jurymen after they have given their verdict; and third, because they would be the means, in the hands of a dissatisfied juror, to destroy a verdict at any time after he had assented to it. 

Clark v. Commonwealth, 135 Va. 490 (1923):  [I]f each juror gave his assent to this verdict, the accused had no right to inquire how or why he arrived at it. The deliberations of the jury and the motives which actuate them in arriving at a verdict are secret and usually even jurors themselves will not be allowed to impeach their verdict by testimony as to secret motives which controlled them, or misunderstanding instructions of the court, the effects of the evidence, the measure of their verdict and the like.

Federal Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Mapp's Ex'r, 184 Va. 970 (1946):  The testimony of jurors concerning their deliberations and proceedings is not admissible. It is not competent for a juror to testify what did or did not influence him.

Fuller v. Commonwealth, 190 Va. 19 (1949):  [A]fter the discharge of the jury a juror will not be heard to impeach the verdict to which he has agreed by saying that he misunderstood the instructions of the court.

Mir Aimal Kasi v. Commonwealth, 256 Va. 407 (1998):  Virginia has been more careful than most states to protect the inviolability and secrecy of jury deliberations, adhering to the general rule that the testimony of jurors should not be received to impeach their verdict, especially on the ground of their own misconduct. Generally, we have limited findings of prejudicial juror misconduct to activities of jurors that occur outside the jury room.

C. Exceptions to Virginia Rule

(1) Externally Acquired Evidence:

Evans-Smith v. Commonwealth, 5 Va. App. 188 (1987)(Juror consulted an almanac): Generally, the testimony of jurors ought not to be received to impeach their verdict, especially on the ground of their own misconduct. . . . An exception to the general rule limiting post-verdict examination of jurors is recognized when it appears that matters not in evidence may have come to the attention of one or more jurors so as to violate the defendant's constitutional right to be confronted with the witnesses against him.

See also: Harris v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 47 (1991)(Juror, a prison guard, “testified” to fellow jurors about the effects of parole on a sentence from a position of knowledge and authority)

(2) Discussing the Case With a Non-Juror

Caterpillar Tractor Co. v. Hulvey, 233 Va. 77 (1987):  Generally, we have limited findings of prejudicial juror misconduct to activities of jurors that occur outside the jury room. For example, the rule has been applied to expressions of opinion made by a juror to third persons during trial proceedings. In most cases, misconduct outside the jury room has prejudicially affected the jury's deliberation of the case by injecting facts connected with the case which had not been admitted in evidence. For example, the rule has been applied to an improper jury view and to unauthorized private conversations between jurors and third persons. 

See also:  Jenkins v. Commonwealth, 244 Va. 445 (1992)(adopting same rule in criminal cases)

When Can the Attorney General Prosecute?

Prosecutor:  "No, Mrs. Smith, we will not be prosecuting your dead uncle because he promised he would leave you the house in his will and he didn't."

Mrs. Smith:  "But you could prosecute Bobby-Jean. She's the one who's got his estate."

Prosecutor:  "She didn't do any crime. You need to talk to a private attorney about this."

Mrs. Smith:  "I ain't got the money to do that. You better prosecute or I'll go over your head to the Attorney General!"

I would wager that every person who works in a Virginia Commonwealth Attorneys office has heard this threat at least five or six times. The thing is, the Attorney General mainly handles appeals. He has very limited prosecutorial abilities in a circuit court. I don't answer to him; I answer to that guy at the other end of the hall from my office. And the reason I'm dealing with Mrs. Smith is that the guy at the end of the hall grew up around here and knows she's coocoo for coco puffs. He's talked to her 26 times already about this and is hoping that my reasoning might break through the maginot line of Mrs. Smith's mind where his has not.

Anyway, the one good thing the conversation has done is to spark my interest in what exactly the Attorney General's criminal prosecution jurisdiction is. So, I sat down and tried to figure it out. There's always the possibility that I missed some section hidden in the UCC somewhere, but I think this covers the vast majority of prosecutorial powers which can be exercised by the Attorney General.

---------

Boundaries of the Attorney General's Prosecutorial Powers in Circuit Court Criminal Trials (mainly found in Virginia Code section 2.2-511):

1) Apparently none if asked by the Governor to handle a particular case.

2) Without a request from the governor and without permission of the local prosecutor:

(a) Violations of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act (§ 4.1-100 et seq.),
(b) Violation of laws relating to elections and the electoral process as provided in § 24.2-104,
(c) Violation of laws relating to motor vehicles and their operation,
(d) The handling of funds by a state bureau, institution, commission or department,
(e) The theft of state property,
(f) Violation of the criminal laws involving child pornography and sexually explicit visual material involving children,
(g) Unauthorized practice of law,
(h) Violations of § 3.2-4212 [cigarette taxing provisions] or 58.1-1008.2 [false report by tobacco company].
(i) Per 18.2-43, assist in all endeavors and prosecutions against those participating in a lynching.
(j) Per 18.2-498.5, violations of the Virginia Governmental Frauds Act.
(k) Per 19.2-9, may appear with the Commonwealth Attorney when a criminal case is removed to federal court.

3) With the permission of the local prosecutor:

(a) Violations of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act (§ 18.2-152.1 et seq.),
(b) Violations of the Air Pollution Control Law (§ 10.1-1300 et seq.),
(c) Violations of the Virginia Waste Management Act (§ 10.1-1400 et seq.),
(d) Violations of the State Water Control Law (§ 62.1-44.2 et seq.),
(e) Violations of Chapters 2 [Principals and Accessories] (§ 18.2-18 et seq.), 3 [Incohoate Offenses] (§ 18.2-22 et seq.), and 10 [Crimes Against the Administration of Justice, i.e. Obstruction] (§ 18.2-434 et seq.) of Title 18.2, if such crimes relate to violations of law listed in (b), (c), and (d) supra,
(f) Criminal violations by Medicaid providers or their employees in the course of doing business, or violations of Chapter 13 [Racketeering] (§ 18.2-512 et seq.) of Title 18.2, in which cases the Attorney General may leave the prosecution to the local attorney for the Commonwealth, or he may institute proceedings by information, presentment or indictment, as appropriate, and conduct the same,
(g) Violations of Article 9 [Money Laundering] (§ 18.2-246.1 et seq.) of Chapter 6 of Title 18.2,
(h) Assisting in the prosecution of violations of §§ 18.2-186.3 [Identity Theft] and 18.2-186.4, [Publishing Another's Information to Harass],
(i) Assisting in the prosecution of violations of § 18.2-46.2 [Criminal Street Gang Participation], 18.2-46.3 [Criminal Street Gang Recruitment], or 18.2-46.5 [Committing Terrorist Act] when such violations are committed on the grounds of a state correctional facility, and
(j) Assisting in the prosecution of violations of Article 10 [Cigarette Sales Laws] (§ 18.2-246.6 et seq.) of Chapter 6 of Title 18.2.

4) Multi-jurisdictional Grand Jury – Per 19.2-215.10, if requested by applicants or special counsel, may participate as special counsel to the grand jury and in any prosecution arising from the grand jury.

5) I would posit that if the Attorney General wanted to donate the time of an attorney in a case wherein there is no statutory authorization then the assistant attorney general can work as a private prosecutor. I have no statutory or case law to support this, but there is a solid argument in favor of this position. Article V section 15 of the Virginia Constitution creates the Attorney General and states "He shall perform such duties . . . as may be prescribed by law."  It does not state that he shall perform his duties as prescribed by statute or by the General Assembly; it says "law." Virginia recognizes common law and the common law has long allowed private prosecutors with the acquiescence of the local government prosecutor.  It would just have to be done according to the rules for private prosecutors.

Private Prosecutors

 Rules for a private prosecutor as laid out in Riner v. Commonwealth, 268 Va. 296 (2004):
 
1. He may not initiate a prosecution.
2. He may not appear before the grand jury.
3. He may appear only by leave of the trial court.
4. He may participate only with the express consent of the public prosecutor.
5. He may make a closing jury argument only in the court's discretion.
6. He may take no part in a decision to engage in plea bargaining.
7. He may take no part in deciding the terms of a plea bargain.
8. He may not make the decision to accept a plea of guilty to a lesser crime.
9. He may not make the decision to enter a nolle prosequi.
10. Automatic disqualification: A private prosecutor who has a civil interest in the case so infects the prosecution with the possibility that private vengeance has been substituted for impartial application of the criminal law, that prejudice to the defendant need not be shown. Allowing that private prosecutor violates the defendant's due process rights under Article I, §11 of the Constitution of Virginia.
11. Work Allowed to Do: (a) There is no arbitrary limitation as to the proportion of work which may be done by a private prosecutor.  (b) Limiting private prosecutors to innocuous witnesses and evidentiary matters would effectively abrogate the common-law principle that still permits their appointment.
12. ULTIMATE RULE: The public prosecutor must remain in continuous control of the case.

Moments in the Life: Another Worthless, Fat F~ck with Glasses

I'm standing in the doorway to a room next to the hallway leading to general district court. I've been talking to Officer Smith about a case that is set for a preliminary hearing that morning, but he got a phone call about another case so I'm killing time looking at something on my phone.

Suddenly, I hear someone loudly proclaim in the hallway, "Look, it's another worthless, fat f~ck wearing glasses." Seeing as that comes disturbingly close to describing me, I turn to see who the proclaimer is and I see one twenty-something male and his woman walking past another twenty-something male who is standing next to the wall. The one standing next to the wall has glasses and is rotund. Proclaimer was obviously provoking Stander as the hall is tight and they both had to be within slugging distance when he spoke. Nevertheless, Stander just stays where he is and Proclaimer walks on until he is around a nearby corner.

I look over at Stander, who is still in the same spot looking as innocent as he can pretend to be. Then Proclaimer comes back around the corner at twice the speed he left, heading straight for Stander. Instinctively, I step into the middle of the hall facing Proclaimer so that he cannot get past me.  Proclaimer pulls up about ten feet short and looks confused. He doesn't know what to do. He wants to go back and get in Stander's face (at the very least), but there's this attorney standing in his way.

About the time Proclaimer gets confused, my brain kicks in and the first thing that goes through it is "What the BLEEP am I doing? If that kid decides he wants to go through me it's going to be painful." So, acting while Proclaimer is still confused, I call out loudly "Officer Smith, could you please come out into the hall?"

Officer Smith puts his phone away and comes out of the room. He sizes up the situation in about a half second and points to Proclaimer. "Leave now! Go where you are supposed to be."

Proclaimer: "He started it. He . . ."

Officer Smith: "Don't care. Move on."

Proclaimer: "But, it's not me . . ."

Officer Smith: "Move on or you will get charged with disturbing the peace."

At that point Proclaimer gives us all an angry look mixed with disdain mixed with the look of someone put upon and oppressed. Then he turns and walks away with his girlfriend.

About fifteen minutes later I had to go into another room where people wait to be arraigned to interview a witness who was waiting there. Officer Smith is with me. Proclaimer, waiting for his arraignment, is sitting there with his girlfriend. As we all leave, he starts back up with the officer.

"He started all of that. It wasn't me."

Officer: "Don't care. No fighting in the courthouse. Don't start up again."

Then Proclaimer turns to me. "You're over him. He needs to be nicer. You need to make him be nicer to people."

Yeah, cuz I'mgoing to yell at a twenty year veteran who stopped you from starting a fight in the hallway. Of course, saying that out loud will do nothing but feed the fire and I just keep walking moving toward the next problem (there's always a next problem).

Proof that All My Testosterone has Died

I'm walking through the narrow hallway outside the general district courtroom (misdemeanor court) and the entire way is lined with defendants standing there chatting with each other while they wait for their shoplifting and trespass cases.

Cute girl with impossibly long blonde and pink ponytail (thick as my arm and ending somewhere around her knees) looks up at me:

"You look mean. Are you mean?"

I just keep walking. "That's the job."

The whole hallway burst out in laughter and the girl looked at me confused.

Look, Miss, I know you were expecting me to say something like "Not for someone as young and precious as you, darling", and I realize as a male I am obligated to have my brain turn to mush when a pretty woman talks to me. When I was younger you probably could have wrapped me around your little finger. However, there comes a point in most guys' lives when the testosterone level drops to the point that his brain can continue to function if a hot woman flirts with him. I think I hit that point somewhere in my low to mid thirties. Prior to that point women could (and every so often did) get me to do all sorts of stupid things for them. So, I guess you either have to build a time machine and go back a few years or you're gonna have to take your shot with the younger prosecutor down the hall.

Can a Jury Trial Be Held on Election Day?

As long as I've been practicing law every courthouse I've been to has declined to schedule jury trials on election days. When I was a brand new attorney a judge explained it to me by saying "You cannot summons jurors on election day and therefore you cannot have a jury trial." I never bothered to check the law on this. Every judge I had appeared in front of refused to schedule juries on election days and it just became one of those things everybody knew could not be done.

Today I was scheduling a jury trial and the judge set it to start on election day. I told the judge that was election day so we couldn't start the trial that day. His reply? "What is your statutory support for that?" I stood there flat footed and said something brilliant like "Umm, every court I've ever been in has told me that." The judge then went ahead and scheduled the jury trial for election day. It really doesn't make a difference to me when the jury starts, but the legal question bugged me. So, I spent more time than I should have researching.

I couldn't find anything in Virginia's statutes or case law which stated a jury trial could not be held on election day. However, I did find this:

Title 8.01: Civil Remedies and Procedure

§ 8.01-327.2. Who are privileged from arrest under civil process.

[T]he following persons shall not be arrested, apprehended, or detained under any civil process during the times respectively herein set forth, but shall not otherwise be privileged from service of civil process by this section:
. . .
7. Voters going to, attending at, or returning from an election. Such privilege shall only be on the days of such attendance.

For those of you who don't know how things work in Virginia, much of Title 8.01 is used as a default for trial procedure unless an issue is specifically dealt with in the criminal procedure sections. Even beyond that, a summons for jury duty is hardly a criminal summons (which would require one to come to court to answer an accusation of criminal activity).

So, as best I can tell, there is no requirement that juries not be held on election day. Notwithstanding that, if a juror decides to leave to go vote at any time during the trial judge cannot require that person to stay. So, if jeopardy has attached and Mr. Juror decides he is going to go vote at his precinct on the other side of the county Mr. Juror can leave. It could happen while the prosecutor is in the middle of his opening statement or the defense attorney is in the middle of a crucial cross examination or the judge is in the middle of reading jury instructions.

Is this likely to happen? No. In fact, it is downright ridiculous scenario. Nevertheless, it is the law and it shows an intention by the General Assembly to favor elections over courthouse proceedings. Still, if the General Assembly really wants to absolutely stop jury trials on election days it needs to be much less obscure than this.

Wait, No, That's Wrong-Right (4th Amendment by the Uninitiated)

Every time I watch something like this I find myself saying "No that's not right"; "Wait that's not how that works"; or "That's right as far as it goes, but . . . "

Overheard in Court

I walk in to listen to part of a civil jury trial going on in Circuit Court. Apparently, the judge had on the previous day indicated that he was disposed toward striking the evidence in the plaintiff's case as legally insufficient to present to the jury (I believe other States would do this via directed verdict). However, the judge gave the parties the night to research and come in to argue. As I watched the plaintiff's attorney, who clearly had already been going for a while, cited case after case after case and explained why each case required the judge to allow the jury to decide the case based upon the evidence which had already been presented.

At one point, prior to moving on to the next case in his stack, the plaintiff's attorney looks up at the judge:

"Judge, not to be too cheeky or anything, but whenever I reach the point that you decide the law requires you not to strike the case please interrupt me and we can move forward with the case."

The judge just smiles back at him: "Naw, that's okay counsel. You put a lot of work into preparing all this for today and I'd hate to stop you when you are only an inch into that stack of cases."

The Vacation: Day Eight

This day was a couple hours of driving followed by attendance at the West Michigan Whitecaps game. They were hosting the Bowling Green (Ky) Hot Rods and it was a pretty good game with the Whitecaps getting two runs in the third and doing the same in the fourth. Then they held off the Hot Rods who scored individual runs in different innings, including the ninth.

The park was full and the crowd was into it, but somewhere around the 3rd or 4th inning something started bugging me and after looking around a bit I figured it out. Almost nobody in the stadium was wearing Whitecaps stuff. I noticed at the souvenir store that there was more stuff from the Major League affiliate than I usually see - a lot more. The Whitecaps are the the single A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers and there were a lot of people wearing Detroit hats/jerseys/t-shirts. However, not even all the ushers were wearing Whitecaps stuff. There were at least two ushers walking around completely decked out in Tigers stuff. I think this is a reflection of two things. First, Detroit is the mothership, has an extremely loyal fan base, and is just down the road a couple hours. However, if that were enough then nobody at Dayton would be wearing Dragons stuff (instead wearing Reds stuff), but the stands there were filled with people in Dragons gear. I think the second factor was the most important: the Whitecaps logo sucks. It's a wave withe eyes crashing over a baseball. It's not the worst logo I've seen, but it's in the bottom ten percent. In comparison, the "D" that Detroit uses as well as the tiger are classics. The test of this theory will come tonight when I'm at the Toledo Mudhens game (Tigers' AAA affiliate) with their well established logo.

When the game ended and we were all walking out the gates they were handing out loaves of bread. Let me rephrase that . . . They were aggressively handing out loaves of bread. Kids were running everybody down and basically throwing bread at them. I barely had time to realize what was going on before a girl ran up and shoved a loaf at my chest so I had to grab it. It wasn't like I was trying to avoid the kid. It was kind of providential; I'd just used up the last of the bread in my cooler (but still have P&J and lunch meat). However, whether I wanted it or not that girl was going to make sure I took my loaf of bread.

Next up: The Toledo Mudhens on Saturday and the Columbus Clippers on Sunday. However, I doubt y'all will get updates from me because the Mudhens are playing a double header against the Bats tonight and the Clippers game is at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Then comes the 5 hour drive home. Not going to be much time for anything other than sleeping or driving for the next couple days.

The Vacation: Day Seven

The day started out with another drive through the farmlands of Michigan. For the majority of this the land was flat but toward the end there were some hills. They weren't really hills like I grew up with in Kentucky, but there was definitely a little bit of change in elevation.

Traverse City is on a spur of Lake Michigan (not sure of the proper term: finger? bay?) and it is obviously a big tourist town. The beaches were full. The harbor was filled with all sorts of boats for sailing and various fun activities. Lots and lots of water out there. The town had a big fair set up which looked at least semi-permanent and besides that it was filled with the kind of quaint little shops meant to separate tourists from their cash.  Gotta say, if it wasn't 12 hours away I'd probably be recommending it to lots of people back home.

The game of the day was a Frontier League game between the Traverse City Beach Bums and the Southern Illinois Miners. The Frontier League is interesting because it is an unaffiliated league so none of its team have any major league support. They also have rules limiting the number of experienced players on each team's roster. I think that each year at least half the team has to be composed of people who don't have any professional experience and the majority if the rest can only have one. In effect, it's a rookie league (much like the Appalachian League back home which I have come to know and, ummmm, kinda think is okay).

The park definitely had a different feel to it. The outside looked like you were walking up to a beach front apartment building. Once you got inside there were normal baseball seats and a whole lot of tables with beach chairs.  The concessions were in little rooms in the concourse building that had sliding glass windows (it felt kinda little leagueish), although there were a couple walk in bars as well. The field itself was synthetic (not sure if this is still called astro-turf). I think this may be a Frontier League standard since it looked exactly like the synthetic field which the Florence Freedom had when I watched one of their games earlier this year.

The game itself was a defensive struggle. As I do the math, before the game the Miners were .5 games ahead of the Beach Bums in the Frontier League East so both teams had a little something to play for. At the end of 9, the score was 0-0.

It should have been 1-0 in favor of the Bums except for umpire interference in the 4th (or maybe 5th - these things blur a little by the next day). And, when I say umpire interference I don't mean a bad call, I literally mean umpire interference. The Bums had a guy on second and the batter hit a screecher right past the pitcher. It was headed for the gap and the runner on second was already halfway to third and heading for home. The ball skipped once and then it nailed the second base ump. It popped in the air and the second baseman grabbed it so it looked like an infield single with the Bums other runner stopping at third. Of course, even that didn't stand. When a ball hits an umpire it's dead (treated like a foul ball, but no strike) so everything reset and everybody went back to where they were when the play began. The Miners then got out of the inning without any runs.

The game went into the 11th tied and a unique Frontier League rule came into play. Starting in the 11th, the last person put out in the inning before is put on second base at the beginning of the inning. Gotta say, I'm not really a fan of this. I'd rather they adopted the Japanese rule of allowing a tie after 12 innings (but nobody asked me). Anyway, in the 11th both teams played it the same way. The first batter sacrifice bunted, moving the runner to third. The defensive team then walked the next batter to set up the double play. Then the defensive teams got the side out. In the twelfth inning the Miners just sent their batters to the plate swinging. A double scored the man from second and they managed to move that guy across the plate as well for a 2 run lead heading into the bottom of the inning. The Bums managed to get their guy from second home and had a guy on first, but it looked like the safety run which the Miners had put on the board was going to hold. Then, with two outs, the Bums batter hit a long ball to right field. The Miners' outfielder raced to the wall and leapt . . . and the ball went six inches over his outstretched glove for a home run.

It was the second best ending to a game I've ever seen (best was a stolen home base with two outs in the 9th by the K-Mets). I still don't like putting the guy on second base though. It feels very little leagueish.

Traverse City Beach Bums 3 - South Illinois Miners 2  (and the Bums move into first place by .5 games)

Today I travel to Grand Rapids to watch the West Michigan White Caps.

The Vacation: Day Six

Day six started by walking out to my car and seeing that someone had destroyed one of my hubcaps. I'm not sure if they broke it trying to remove it and then got mad or if they simply destroyed it for fun. It was a cheap plastic pop-in so trying to steal it made no sense. Anyway, they didn't break into the cab or flatten the tire so I guess I should count myself lucky.

The trip to Midland, Michigan was uneventful. The GPS took me through a bunch of country highways over a lot of very flat farmland. Every so often there would be a crossroads with a small store and a gas station, but not much else. Then up popped Midland. I get the feeling that there are a decent number of people around here, but they are spread out a bit.

I went and played disc golf at Chippewa Banks. It was a nice course without too many challenging pins. I played a typical "first time on the course" round with about 40% pars, 40% bogies, 10% "aw crud the pin's over there" bogies, and 10% bogies for which I can't even use that excuse. It was a flat course and about 65% of it was in the woods. At one point the path went along a 50' wide river and I thought I was going to have to shoot over it, but then it turned and led me back into the woods. All-in-all, a fun way to spend the afternoon.

The big event of the day was the game between the Great Lake Loons and the Lansing Lugnuts. Dow Diamond is the Loons home park and it's an interesting stadium. The gate to enter the stadium is between center and right field. The stadium was fairly typical except for the fires. In the concourse, on both sides of the outfield there were open fire pits and behind home plate there was a fireplace. I asked one of the kids working the park if this had a particular reason and he told me it was just because it gets cold.

The game today was something of a defensive duel. Not a lot of hits and the only run scored on the night came in the seventh when the Lugnuts drove a run across the plate with some small ball that got a man on third and then a single to drive him in. It was a well pitched game and the crowd of Vietnam vets to the left of me and the crowd of Japanese folks to the right of me all seemed to enjoy it. After about five innings, I got up and wandered the park and finally ended up at a stand up table on the concourse behind home plate watching the last couple innings with a couple local guys. Once they figured out I was here on vacation they spent the time quizzing me about how this park compared to others and telling me about the 200 or so things I should see and do before I leave Michigan (which seemed to boil down to a lot of beautiful lakes and fly fishing).

Loons 0 - Lugnuts 1

Today I drive to Traverse City, which I believe is Michigan's answer to Myrtle Beach.  We'll see.

The Vacation: Day Five

I got to Lansing an hour earlier than check in was allowed at my motel and it was raining, so I went off to the nearest bowling alley and rolled three games. The first was a 180 and the third was a 230. We won't mention anything which purported to be a bowling game between those two. The Spare Time bowling alley was a pretty interesting place. At one end was an old-fashioned, win your tickets, claim your prize arcade. At the other end was a completely closed off bowling area which looked pretty swank (the tables in there looked to have fancy mixed drinks on them and there was obviously some sort of private party going on). There was also the typical bar which you see at all the northern alleys and outside (in front of the bar) half the parking lot was covered by barriers which kept several feet of sand in place for a beach volleyball area. Inside, every alley in the regular bowling area was covered with moms and their kids.To the left of me were 4 asian ladies and their herd of kids who were doing their darndest to disprove any stereotypes about how well behaved and quiet asian kids are. These kids were bouncing all over the place and running their mothers ragged just like any other 'murican kid even if there wasn't a word of English being spoken over there. To my right was a lady with her two sons and her 4(?) year old daughter. The daughter was using bumpers and the plastic ball roller shaped like a dragon. It was clear that this child was in charge of the entire group. Halfway through their first game she was chasing mom off after mom put the plastic roller in place. Before the game was over the girl wouldn't even let mom come up anymore. She was moving the roller into position herself, aiming it, putting the ball in place, and rolling. And she was doing pretty darn good. She even got some spares and a strike.

The next big event of the day was the Lansing Lugnuts. The Lugnuts play at Cooley Law School Stadium. It's a fairly generic single A stadium with a couple of exceptions. First, they seem to be building apartments onto the back of the stadium behind the outfield and over a concourse and vendor area. I may be wrong about this though. There was a sign that said something about a "Michigan Baseball Hall of Fame", but it did not state any specifics and those look an awful lot like apartments (and wouldn't that be a cool place to live?). Second, they appear to have gutted out the first three rows behind home plate. In it's place they have built a small pit where they kept the people waiting to go onto the field pregame for the first pitch (apparently half the Michigan legislature came for this purpose yesterday) and the younger kids waiting to play between inning games as they were being corralled by the older kids running the games. This was annoying and it meant my "front row" tickets weren't really front row.

The temperature was 65 degrees. 65 degrees. Yeesh. Thankfully, I had an old jacket stuffed way back in the trunk of my car. It may have been stained and smelled slightly of oil, but it kept me warm enough. Personally, I think this is Michigan's payback on me for gloating over the fact that the fans in Comerica couldn't handle a 79 degree day.

The game itself was pretty good. The Great Lake Loons were playing good small ball and moved three runs over the plate. Unfortunately for them, the Lansing Lugnuts had two 2 run homers and added a small ball run as well. The high point of the day was watching a Lugnut fielder rush a throw to first which went five feet over the first baseman's glove and drilled into the stands. Luckily, no one was hit, but I think everyone in the stadium gasped at the same time.

Lugnuts 5 - Loons 3

Tonight I'll be watching the same teams again - only this time it will be at the Loos' stadium which is wherever Midland, Michigan happens to be (apparently a little less than 2 hours northeast of Lansing).

The Vacation: Day Four

This was something of a down day. I slept in a bit and the big event of the day was going out to The Ponds at Lakefront, a disc golf course which was built on the remnants of an old ball golf course. It was flaaaaaaat and a great place to practice throwing for distance and I spent about three hours on the course. The only really tricky shot was one over an old pond and that was only if you threw from the pro tee. It was a tunnel shot between trees on both banks and about 100' of lake between. I was playing the regular person tees so I had a much easier shot over a dried out finger of the pond (in fact, I overshot the basket). I got a lot of practice throwing long shots (for me) and I wish there was some place around home which I could go to and use like this place to practice bombing discs; it's possible I could develop a decent distance throw if there was. On the other hand, since most of the places back home require more control than distance I think the kind of throws which I was using yesterday might lead to me smashing my discs into a lot of trees when I get home.

Anyway, post disc golf I found another Arabic restaurant to eat at, but it wasn't quite as good as the one I went to Sunday night. Then I went back to Masri Sweets and bought more stuff I ought not to be eating. After that I wandered around Dearborn rubbernecking like all tourists do. It's interesting. You drive around and see a few signs with both English and Arabic on them and then suddenly you're in a roughly 6 block area where everything has both. There were only a couple stores I saw which only had an Arabic sign and both of them seemed to be women's clothing stores. There seem to be a lot of restaurants proclaiming in Arabic that they are Lebanese while just saying "Arabic" for us poor gringos who la narifoo al-luga.

There were little grocery stores scattered about that obviously meant to cater to the Arabic population (they all had signs proclaiming halal meat). I spent a fair amount of time trying to dredge up my linguistic skills because of one of the grocery stores. The English sign said Green Supermarket, but the Arabic said "the markets of the Mustafa"; I kept running it through my head and coming up with akdhar as green (which google confirmed on my cell). Anyway, here's a picture of the Arabic sign for those of you out there that taqra al-lugatil arabea:

Another interesting thing to see was the abundance of hooka stores and hooka bars. Didn't stop at any as I am not a fan, but it looked a lot like it filled the slot that bars would in most places. Not that there weren't also a fair number of bars around, because there is also obviously a non-Arabic population here as well.

And that brings me to my final topic of the day. There are an awful lot of yankees up here. I mean, I expected there would be people of Arabic descent, but nobody warned me about the huge numbers of yankees with weird accents and courtesy disabilities. Of course, once you make the 20-30% rudeness allowance that you have to make for yankees in general they are all perfectly decent human beings. There are just so many of them. I've even run into a few of a truly different group of people from some place north of yankeedom which I think is called "Canadia." These people are very polite, pronounce their "o"'s very differently (omg, it's not just a stereotype), and talk about something called "hawk-key" even while they are sitting at a baseball game.

Anyway, next comes the Lansing Lugnuts game. See y'all at the game.

The Vacation: Day Three

Apparently, I pre-paid for parking when I bought my ticket to watch the Detroit Tigers, but forgot about it. I pulled into the first parking lot I found and paid $10. This was lot P. It was maybe half a mile from the stadium and the parking I'd pre-bought was in lot Y. If P was half a mile out, I fear that Y may have been somewhere in Outer Mongolia, so the money was probably worth it.

I hiked in and had a little trouble getting through the metal detector until we figured out it was the badge in my wallet setting it off - at which point the security guy wanding me down (who I figure was off duty working a second job) gave me a "you're a schmuck" grin and announced to the guy running the metal detector that I was okay, "It was just the big metal badge he's got in his wallet." And thus, I got passed in.

Comerica Park felt like one of those old time monstrocities which were built in the 70's, but apparently it was actually opened in 2000. That's disappointing, especially since I've been to Great American in Cincy (opened in 2003) and seen how much better a modern ballpark can be. Heck, I've been to to the home ballparks of the Charlotte Knights and Norfolk Tides (both AAA) and seen how much better a modern ballpark can be.  They spent a lot of time and money making the outside of Comerica look cool and putting up statues to make things look good instead of actually making the park work.  The facilities are woefully inadequate. Until yesterday, I hadn't stood in line to use a restroom at a baseball stadium since I went to Riverfront as a kid. There was such a lack of space for vendors that a good deal of the concourse was roped off for kiosks. They were placed immediately behind the rear seats of the lower level. A lot of well thought out stadiums now put tables or stand up bars there so that people who buy food can eat and watch the game. The only tables this stadium provided were well away from any possible view of the field. Unlike most stadiums which have monitors in the concourse so you can keep watching the game as you buy food or visit the loo, Comerica had very few and they weren't even turned on. They weren't even piping the radio play-by-play into the concourse. As well, the seating was bad. There was plenty of nosebleed seats (the vast majority of which were empty) and even the lower level seats were poorly laid out. They were neither staggered by row nor "stadium" style so that when the man took his seat in front of mine I could not see the field unless leaned to one side or the other. Most of the game I tried to position myself so that I could see the pitcher throw and the then quickly flick my eyes past the guy's head and see what happened at home plate. I was willing to forgive all this as the faults of a stadium built in the same era as Riverfront (1970) - and boy, did it bring back on deja vu of attending games at Riverfront - until I looked it up just before writing this and saw it is only 15 years old. Unbelievable.

Counterpointing all this was a tremendous group of fans. The place was filled with people and this crowd was live. They rooted for their team the entire time and even sat around joking with the rather large contingent of Toronto fans who came to the game.They held out hope for the entire game despite the fact that Toronto had the game in hand after a 6 run sixth. Detroit played sloppy with outfield errors (you catch the ball - no you catch the ball - no you catch the ball - wait, where'd the ball go?) and an easy play with a throw over the first baseman's glove stretched as high as he could get it and still be in contact with the base and more. It just wasn't their day. Even so, the crowd held throughout the entire game with very little crowd leakage prior to the game ending. I'm impressed. These are good baseball fans.

The funniest part of the day (for me) came when the two guys next to me started griping about how boiling hot it was in the stadium. It was 79 degrees and there was a breeze. I kept my mouth shut, but clearly these people have a different definition of hot than those of us from a little further South.

The Tigers lost to the Blue Jays 10-5.

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Post game, I went to my hotel. It turns out to be an old-fashioned really nice hotel except it is so close to the interstate that you constantly hear the traffic and the outside of the hotel is painted pink. The next step was to find my way to the nearest Arabic restaurant (Al-Ameer) and eat a good meal. Finally, I went to Masri Sweets and got two something or others which each had to have at least 1,000 calories and tasted amazing.

And so the day ended on an excellent note.

The Vacation: Day Two

Day Two: I drove to Columbus to watch the Columbus Crew S.C. play the New York Red Bulls. It was the first soccer game I'd gone to since I watched my high school (Bryan Station) get massacred by Lexington Catholic some time back in the stone ages.

I was a little surprised when they charged me $15 for parking.  That's a little steep, but there was nowhere else to park so I paid it. Next, I had to figure out where the stadium entrance was and get through the rigorous security which required me to pat my pockets before I could enter the park.Then I walked in and the first thing I saw were giant hanging banners in yellow with the pictures of four Crew players painted on them. I felt like I should be pledging loyalty to Rodina and the Party.

The stadium itself felt like a super-sized high school stadium. The whole place is made of metal bleachers. The only pro level stadiums where I've seen that before is single A baseball and even then rarely. The place just did not feel permanent.

And then there was the crowd. At most sporting events I've been to the crowd seems to take on a life of its own. There's a constant buzz even before the game in the concourse area. In contrast, this group of people came in like a bunch of zombies. They looked like loyal fans, although a huge number of them were wearing the old cool logo instead of the new generic. They just did not seem excited at all.

[mini-rant] As an aside, at this point I must note how the Crew have been the victim of management stupidity in the last year. The Crew used to have one of the most unique and easily identifiable logos in all of American sports and particularly in U.S. soccer. It was pretty darn cool:

And then they changed to a generic, designed by committee logo which I could have doodled in my spare time when I was in the 7th grade. They also decided that hereafter and for all time they would change from being called "the Crew" to being called "Crew SC" The SC stands for soccer club because I guess we weren't smart enough to figure out what sport those guys running around on the pitch were playing. It was one of the worst guttings and generitizations that any sports club has gone through. If you are standing twenty feet away from someone wearing the new logo it just looks a circle with some indecipherable squiggles in it.

It was clear by looking at the crowd that they are not buying in. While the new logo was everywhere in the stadium, the majority of the people in the crowd who were the obvious die hard fan types were wearing the old logo. And it's too late in the season for this just to be stuff left over from last year. In fact, most of the t-shirts looked like they were new so somebody is still selling stuff with the good logo on it.

This was a monumental screwup on the part of the Crew's owner/management. Will they fix it? No. Will they admit it? No. The new logo is the perfect corporate creation. It is generic enough that it carries no real meaning. Thus it can't really raise any emotional backlash or stir any feelings and you can sell it to everyone. And it feels more European than the old, American-feeling logo and this is a sport where we should all be europhiles, so that's another plus.

God save all sports fans from the idiots in ownership and management. [/mini-rant]

Once the match started most of the crowd sat there quiescent. There were a lot of empty seats for an organization which brags about how numbers are up. To be fair, that might have been because it was the 4th and many people might not associate soccer with the 4th. Anyway, there was a corner section which was filled with rowdies making lots of noise, but it had little or nothing to do with the match. They were just over there singing songs and chanting away oblivious to the events on the pitch.

Eventually, the crowd did start to slowly come to life, but it didn't really happen until about 35 minutes in when the Crew tied the match at 1-1. Even then it seemed to slowly rise out of somnolence until it got about half 75% engaged by the end of the match. I'm not sure the rowdies in the corner ever really engaged, but they made noise the whole night through.

The main lesson I learned while at the match is that soccer is not a good sport to watch from the third row, mid-pitch. My seat gave me an okay view except for when it was blocked by the TV camera which the Crew placed right on the half way line. However, when I left the seat at the break between periods and went to the upper level I could actually watch the play far better. It's something I'll have to keep in mind if I ever make the 5 hour journey back up here to watch another match.

In the end, the Crew won 2-1.

The Vacation: Day One

So, vacation was going to start Thursday at noon when the office closed for the 4th of July holiday. As I'm sure all of you know and have experienced, that was just a pipe dream. By the time court was over, I finished what paperwork I could, and left instructions relating to the remaining stuff, it was dusk. Consequently, the trip home to get my bags and feed the critters turned into a decision to remain home. After all, I'm not sure my cat can sleep unless it is laying on top of me.

Friday morning I timed my departure so that I could stop at the Pine Mountain Grill in Whitesburg for breakfast. Of course, when I get there the place has a sign on the front door informing customers that because Letcher County is cutting water off at 8 a.m. the resteraunt isn't serving sit down meals until the water is turned back on. So, I end up getting a couple biscuits at the next Double Kwik I ran into on the road. 

The 5+ hour journey to Dayton, Ohio continued.  Through most of the trip I was listening to "They Called Me God: The Best Umpire Who Ever Lived", an audiobook about the life and career of Doug Harvey. As you might suppose from the title, Mr. Harvey is not exactly the most humble guy who ever lived, although it is an interesting ramble through whatever topic seemed to pop into his mind as the book was being written. That's typical of this kind book so I wasn't dissappointed, although I think "The Umpire Strikes Back" by Ron Luciano was better (but it isn't available in audiobook).

I got to Dayton early enough to go to the local top ranked disc golf course. You drive through a somewhat run down area of town to get to a somewhat run down park in order to find a run down disc golf course. The course wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as I'd hoped - lots of medium-long, rather open fairways over grass that was just tall enough to stop the disc from skipping and hide it from easy view. Lots of younger kids playing in groups of three to six. Naturally, I get glommed onto by an older hippy type who just decides he's going to golf with me on the third tee. Admittedly, I didn't try to shake him too hard because he became my native guide. Without him I'd have wasted at least five or ten minutes trying to figure out where each next tee was and where each basket was. Still, I wasn't too surprised at the end when he hit me up for beer money.

Next came the Travelodge hotel. Not much you can say about a $50 hotel. The hallway to the room smells funny and some of the people in the other rooms are *ahem* interesting, but the room is solid enough and the lock on the doors and the wifi work great.

To this point, Vacation 2015 was rating mediocre to mediocre-low. And then I went to watch the Dayton Dragons play.

It's nor fair. The Dayton Dragons have now set the standard against which the rest of my vacation will be judged. The only tickets I could order for this game were in the outfield grass area (I kid you not) and the area was filled with people. The stands were packed and the place felt more like I was at a well attended AAA game rather than a single-A. As the game began, they were making announcements about how you could try to arrange to get tickets for next year. The scoreboard had big dragons on it. The outfield walls were electronic and constantly playing scenes. The people were really into the game and nobody left before it was over (in most minor league parks there is a trickle after the third and a steady drain of leavers starting about the seventh). Heck, when the game was over I left and the great majority of the crowd was still sitting in its seats. It was amazing. I now want to move to Dayton just so I can rent an apartment across from the field and go to every home game. I even violated one of my major rules and bought a jersey.

So, the rest of the baseball teams I'm going to see this next eight days have a lot to live up to. Today is actually a soccer day and I'll drop ya'll a line about the Columbus Crew tomorrow morning. 

Training: The Finale

Well, I am now officially trained on how to do juries. I'll never lose another case and I now have extra case law to quote to judges as they roll their eyes at me. Overall, it was fun and I got to go duckpin bowling, play disc golf, and watch minor league baseball in my spare time. And, honestly, I did learn some things which could prove useful. However, it just wasn't the stress out experience for me that it seemed to be for some of the younger prosecutors.

Overall things I learned this week: (1) The Great Wolf Lodge is a great vacation spot for parents with kids age 6-12 (there were about a gazillion kids). As a business conference center? Cum si cum sa. Wifi was bad in my room and I could not stream video without constant pauses or shut downs (this is a cardinal sin as it kept me from watching minor league baseball). There was no business center that I could find and they gave our group two joined residential rooms for its evening social get togethers instead of one of the empty conference rooms 50 feet down the hall. They're clearly trying to fill up empty rooms (this place is massive) with business conferences, but they need to do a little better job.

(2) Cell coverage in Williamsburg is worse than cell coverage in the Appalachian Mountains. There were times I felt like I was back in the stone ages. I know that they want to keep the city looking like people just got off the boats from Europe (and therefore have no towers), but if they are going to be that obtuse about putting up something tall they need to put in many more low level repeaters.

(3) There are many fun things to do in about a 60-90 minute drive zone. And I don't mean the usual tourist trap stuff.  Williamsburg has a really nice disc golf course. There's duckpin bowling in Portsmouth. I repeat, there's duckpin bowling in Portsmouth. Go now. Go right now. I so wish this was not 8 hours away from where I live. There's AAA baseball in Norfolk. This would not be a bad place to live.

(4) I'd forgotten what it was like to drive around cities. Thankfully, I drove around Williamsburg for a couple days to get somewhat up to speed before I went down and tried out the rats nest of roads down in the Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, etc. area. I swear, my phone's navigation function almost had a nervous breakdown (merge on to 246 East then in 12 feet cross 6 lanes of traffic and exit onto the 546 ramp and take an immediate right onto Boatsright Avenue). I lost count of the number of times I missed the turn and the dang phone kept squawking at me "make a U turn, make a U turn, MAKE A BLEEPING U TURN."

Anyway, it was fun. Now I go back to the real world and start getting stressed out again.

Training Day 5

Okay, so there was no post for training day 4 because I was involved in learning some very important facts.

I learned that there is a very nice bowling alley in Williamsburg, AMF Bowling, where I bowled two decent games and one game which shall not be mentioned.

I also learned that Portsmouth has a duckpin bowling alley, Victory Lanes. For those of you who don't know, Duckpin has shorter, squatter pins and uses a ball which is maybe 40% the size of the ball you are used to and has no finger holes. It's a good deal more difficult and therefore you get three throws at the pins each frame. It's also scored differently, but I'll let those of you interested look it up. I played three games, didn't break 100 on any of them, and really enjoyed it.  I wish this version of bowling hadn't died out everywhere except in Northeastern states (and two alleys in Virginia which ain't anywhere near where I live).

Thirdly, I learned there is some sort of weird time dilation effect between Williamsburg and Portsmouth. When I started the drive the gps navigator told me it would be an hour. 10 minutes later it recalculated and told me the drive would be an hour from where I was. 10 minutes after that the gps recalculated and told me it would take an hour from where I was. By the time I got to Victory Lanes it had taken about 95 minutes to do a 60 minute drive (and the drive back took less than an hour so the time dilation effect does not work both ways). Still, it was worth it. Now all I have to do is find some place that has candlestick bowling.

And now  I go off to learn how to do cross examinations.

Training Day 3

Back at it today. Lessons learned so far: (1) There's a really nice disc golf course in Williamsburg, & (2) you cannot get to the same place the same way twice in a row in this town.  I swear that Williamsburg pays Google to send people on tours of the historic parts of the town when they use Google Navigator. I'm sure there is a direct and easy way to get here, but I haven't found it yet.

Last night I spent two hours at the New Quarter Park (after I found the park) playing disc golf. It's a very well thought out and laid out course and provided me with a lot of time to think about and plan what I am going to do in class today (this last part is in case someone out there from the training ever reads this blawg). The guy running the park was an extremely helpful, and somewhat frantic, Hippy-Asian guy with a goatee. He was sitting in the office with the closed sign up until I walked up to pay the $3 fee and then he walked me out to first tee. It was a fun experience.

Oh well, time to go learn how to do an opening statement.

Training Day 2

Okay, so they put us up at the Great Wolf Lodge which looks like an awesome family vacation spot.  It has water slides and mini-bowling and role playing games et cetera. And the rooms are downright amazing. Any of you with kids age 6-10 should probably take out the second mortgage I'm sure it would cost you to book a week and bring the family here for vacation.

The training is being held at William & Mary Law School. It's a nice place although it's a bit of a maze for the uninitiated (me). They have terrible seats in the lecture rooms and moot courtroom which are attached to the table and swivel in place. The only way I can sit comfortably on one is to turn the chair all the way to the side; otherwise, it crushes my fat tummy up against the table. I know this is not an issue for you skinny folks, but I think I'm going to file some sort of ADA claim for fat people everywhere.

Lots of young attorneys here. Lots of young attorneys. I feel like an old man all of the sudden (maybe because I'm well on the way no matter how much I heap denial after denial on the fact). Oh well, so starteth day 2 . . .

Off to Training

Not been posting much on here lately for several reasons. Mainly because I have been filling my spare time with a concerted effort (1) to increase my physical conditioning from appallingly dismal to just generally not so great (I want the elixir of youth now, DangIt!) and my quest to attend to as many minor league (above Rookie League) baseball games as I can this Summer (I have gotten to all the teams in Kentucky already and plan to get all the ones in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Michigan by September 5).

Consequently, I've not opined about several issues. And for those of you who think that this finally is going to be my return to the fray - sorry, I'm headed off to training in Williamsburg, Virginia. I'm here waiting for the first day to start as I type. On the way here I watched the Potomac Nationals (saw an inside the park home run) play on Friday and the Richmond Squirrels on Saturday. Assuming the Norfolk Tide don't get rained out, I'll complete the Virginia teams this week and on next Saturday and Sunday I plan to watch the Carolina Mudcats and Winston-Salem Dash.

Anyway, this week's training is about how to do the various parts of a jury trial. I look forward to seeing some new angles and techniques. And then I return to the Appalachian Mountains to do what Conan defined as best in life . . .

Sadly, I've Seen Worse

Legal Misconceptions

I've heard the Miranda one too many times to count.

Death By Drugs: 2012 & 2013

Previous years: 2010, 2011(A), 2011(B), and 2014.

I thought I'd look to see where our death rates from overdoses are and found two Virginia ME reports that I had not previously done. Red is in top five for overdose deaths and deaths caused by legal medication (as measured by the ME: fentanyl, hydrocodone, methadone, and oxycodone - hereinafter FHMO). Yellow is only in the top five for deaths caused by FHMO.

2012 Overdose Deaths

2013 Overdose Deaths

2012 follows the pattern we've seen for years where FHMO have been killing people dead in higher percentages for a long time. However, 2013 is very different. To begin with, the municipalities which have the highest percentage of deaths are not the ones we are accustomed to seeing (except Dickenson County). Emporia and Martinsville are probably anomalous spikes and Charles City County may be as well. However, there's another interesting development. Deaths are not coming from the regular sources.

	Top 5 (Overall Deaths)		FHMO		Heroin/Cocaine
1	Martinsville  (58.2)		21.8		14.5
2	Charles City County  (42.1)		28.1		00.0
3	Dickenson  (38.7)		25.8		00.0
4	Emporia  (35.8)		17.9		17.9
5	Patrick  (32.7)		16.3		5.4

All death rates per 100,000

You'll notice that in most of these municipalities FHMO and H/C do not add up to total deaths.  I think I know what the cause of the difference is. About this time is when the synthetic drugs really started hitting hard and some of them are truly nasty. Unfortunately, the ME does not seem to have statistics about them.

The top ten drugs that in the systems of people who died by overdose:

	2012		2013
1	Morphine  214		Alprazolam  290
2	Ethanol  252		Morphine  283
3	Diazepam  208		Ethanol 249
4	Oxycodone  197		Diazepam  234
5	Alprazolam  192		Oxycodone  207
6	Heroin  163		Heroin  161
7	Methadone  115		Cocaine  142
8	Diphenhydramine  115		Clonazepam  134
9	Hydrocodone  98		Methadone  119
10	Citalopram  86		Codeine  117
10	Cocaine  86		~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Diazepam includes its metabolite and heroin is measured by its metabolite.

Not sure where all the morphine is coming from unless the ME is counting people in hospitals who are in the late stages of painful terminal illnesses. Other than that, the rest of the drugs involved in overdoses seem to track with experience.  Alprazolam (Xanax) and Diazepam (Valium) are anti- anxiety meds.  Although Clonazepam (Klonopin) is described by the ME as an anti-convulsant, we see it most often prescribed as an anti-anxiety drug.  Citalopram is an anti-depressant that is also given to handle anxiety.  Doctors hand these happy pills out like they are candy on Halloween.  Ethanol is, simply put, booze.  Oxycodone and hydrocodone are narcotics used for "pain management."  Methadone can theoretically be used to handle pain, but it mostly used as a legal substitute high for illegal highs. Diphenhydramine is an addictive hypnotic medicine used in over the counter sleep aids.

Surprisingly, heroin has not shown an increase. I say surprisingly because in the last several years there has been a narrative stating that heroin dealers have cut their prices and increased their quality in order to compete with the pills. The wave of heroin is coming! And yet, it never seems to appear in significant amounts outside of its normal stomping grounds.

Breakup

I know that I don't usually post personal stuff on the blawg, but I'm more than a little peeved/perplexed/ upset right now and I have to vent somewhere.

The girlfriend broke up with me last night. There was lots of yelling and unhappiness until she left about 1 in the morning. There was a loud screeching/scraping noise when she left but I was not going out there because I know she keeps a pistol in her truck. I suspect I'll find my car keyed when I go out this morning.

It was a weird breakup. I've been broken up with for a lot of reasons: emotionally unavailability, too many ferrets, too old, too boring, too out of shape, unwilling to be that kinky ("No, I will not spend the next 4 hours tying you into the Yakumora ball of pain-pleasure. Why not? Because that's too frigging dangerous and if you end up in the hospital, or worse, Officer Smith is going to be questioning ME about why there were 3 nooses tied around your neck."), and of course the old favorite, "It's not you. It's me."

Last night was different. I hooked my phone to some speakers and started playing music. She just went batshyte crazy on me. She kept screaming at me about how I am obsessed with the Monkees. She threw my Monkees CD's on the floor and tried to do the same with Monkees LP's I have up on the wall. She did get the poster of their guitar logo off the wall and ripped it in half, but I half a couple dozen of those so it was no big loss.

There was a lot of Monkees hate. Before last night, I didn't even know she had a problem with the Monkees. In fact, I thought she saw it as a lovable quirk of mine. And, you know, for the first little bit I thought she was pulling an early April fools joke. I really thought she was joking.

Then I saw her face . . .