BEFORE CHANGES

THIS IS NO LONGER PART OF THE ACTUAL BOOK! BITS AND PIECES OF IT ARE, BUT IT'S BEING CHANGED!!!! NEW CHAPTERS ARE BEING POSTED!


Philosophy of the Dark
Chapter 29:1
-Helpless
-On Both Accounts


She was late. Fifty heads turned to watch as she jogged down the main
aisle of the courtroom.

There were two new station camera's recording in the back, primped up
blonds stood facing them with microphones in hand.

“Miss. Dumont,” the judge in the front of the room said, “Pleased you could
make it.”

Jamie silently sat at the empty table to the left of the podium, Tammy
would have been there with her. At the other table was Richards lawyer,
Jamie's mom, and two doctors.

At Jamie's table there was empty space and false hope.

“Miss Dumont, do you have a lawyer?” the judge asked.

“Uh...no,” Jamie answered in a wavering voice. Twelve eyes scrutinized her
from another corner of the room, some were scratching down notes. Just
below the podium where the Judge sat was a man typing furiously.

“Do you understand that we can hire one for you?”

“Yes, I understand, but no thank you,” Jamie's voice grew stronger, while
on the inside she was breaking down, falling apart, dying slowly.

The Judge sighed, looking at Richard's lawyer as she did so, “Mr. Ortega,
your opening statement please,” she said.

Mr. Ortega stepped forward to the front of the room with an odd smile on
his face. A smile of victory.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

The room went silent, all except for the man banging at the keys of his
typewriter.

Ching. A new piece of paper.

“Those of you who knew Richard,” Mr. Ortega began, “knew that he was an
honorable man. A good father, a loving husband.” A look was spared for
Jamie's mom.

“But yet he lies in a hospital, as we speak, trapped in a coma because of
Jamie Dumont. His very own daughter.”

The world gasped. Jamie could hear them, sitting in front of their television
set's with their families reliving the horrors of teenage murder.

“Jamie claims 'not guilty'! For what? For sending her father to the hospital!
She claims she didn't do it, well there is indisputable evidence that she
pushed him over the banister, she wanted to cause him harm, she is
responsible for her actions! Jamie Dumont is guilty.”

Mr. Ortega straightened out his suit, thanked the audience and went back
to his seat. Judge Vogel looked to Jamie next.

“Miss Dumont, would you please give your opening statement.”

Ortega jumped up, “Your Honor!” he exclaimed, slamming a hand down on
the desk, “you can't ask the guilty to give an honest recount!”

“Mr. Ortega, take your seat,” Judge Vogel said sternly, “this is my court and
I decide who will do what, Miss Dumont is under oath of honesty.”

Ortega sat down, his face was beet red and matched his tie, down to the
swirling black pattern.

“Miss Dumont,” Judge Vogel motioned toward the front of the room.

Jamie stood up, her legs as useless as shivering toothpicks.

Lights shone in her face, hiding the audience, the room fell dead silent as
they waited anxiously for her words.

“Uh...” Jamie stuttered, her words as quiet as a pin drop, and just as
legally useful. “As I'm sure you all know, I plead not guilty,” and eloquent
start, still quiet, still useless. Somebody in the audience stifled laughter.
Jamie shut her eyes tight, willing herself to disappear, to explode, anything
to get away.

“But it's not because I didn't do it, I admit full responsibility for my
mistake. It's because I didn't intend to bring harm to him, I meant to get
him off of me. Self-defense.”

Ortega smiled, something wasn't right, Jamie could tell.

“Uh...That's all.”

Jamie took her seat alone at her table. There were no papers, no evidence,
not like on the other side. Multiple witnesses, a stack of papers and
evidence enough to prove the judge guilty.

In a court like this, Jamie had no clue, no legal mind, no hope now.

Here, she was helpless.

The room was still dead silent, Jamie dropped her eyes, refusing to look
away from the wrinkled material of her pants.

A snicker, silenced in the background, a million hearts shattered, one life
going down quickly, with no way back up.

“You're saying that you are responsible for Mr. Dumont's injury's?” Ortega
called out.

“Mr. Ortega-”

“Your Honor, I was asking a question.”

Judge Vogel sighed, “continue,” she said with a wave of her hand.

“Jamie, the answer,” Ortega prompted.

“Yes. I am responsible for his injury's, just as much as he is for mine.”

“What has he done to you? Do you have proof?”

“Not anymore,” Jamie said.

“So that's a no on proof. Is there anybody who can second your
accusations?”

“Yes,” Jamie said, “my mother.”

Ortega laughed, “Miss, your moms the reason you're in court.”

“What?”

“Mr. Ortega, please,” Judge Vogel tried to cut in for the first time.

“She told the cops that you did it on purpose. She has your voice, on tape,
admitting that you wanted to cause harm to your father.”

“I never said anything like that!” Jamie said.

“Well, your not the one with the evidence.”

Three loud bangs, and the room was silenced, except for the ever clicking
typewriter.

“Please!” Judge Vogel said. “Now is not the time. This is a trial, not a
debate.”

The typewrite was silent for the first time.

“Unfortunately,” Judge Vogel began, looking at Jamie, “you aren't allowed
to take any witnesses to the stand. Mr. Ortega, however, may.”

Ortega smiled again, and went up to the front of the room. Jamie's hands
shook, and she pushed them hard onto the desk until they turned white,
the blood leaving them.

“My first witness I will call up to the stand,” Ortega said, in a loud
authoritative voice, “is Richard Dumont.”

Once again, a thick silence coated the room, heads turned, all looking for
any sign of a miraculously healed man come to testify against his
daughter. Nobody came, whispers flooded the room as they all realized
what Ortega had just done.

Judge Vogel slammed her gavel against the table, silencing the room once
more.

“Mr. Dumont is in the hospital, and unable to be here Mr. Ortega,” she said.

There was another victory smile from Ortega, one that reached up to his
eyes, embedded itself into his every deep wrinkle.

“My point exactly.”


POD 30 -The first step. NOW POSTED!

“My point exactly.”
Oooo..... *wince*
nice.
Another good chapter. Its weakness, though, is research; certain things in here aren't truly realistic, and wouldn't occur in an actual court case, so its power loses credibility. I'm not saying you should take several classes on law and criminal procedure, but just Google search some info, or even just watch a couple movies that have good, realistic court scenes, and you'll get all the reference you need to brush this up. The only other thing is to go back and double check on your conventions editing, but that's the usual.

Now where the heck is Tammy???? AGGGGHHHGGGGG!!!!

I'd like to kill her now.
Maybe I'll settle for killing Ortega. Anyway, you have me waiting rather impatiently for the next chapter now. I'd like to see the rest of this trial.
grrr....
>.<
that's my impatience. Go, go, go.
um... anyway. Good work- bei'theh!

~sworddance

Yeah, I've been trying to figure out the whole court thing, I've PM'd somebody who helped, I've been watching nothing but courtTV for the past few days. I've read and watched several murder trials. Looked it up. Anything and everything I could. I even asked my dad, who was on the jury of a murder case.

Could you give me examples of what's wrong? Just so I know.

Thanks, I'm working on 29:2 right now.

Ooo. That's a hard question, as I'm no expert myself. Oh, let me think... I think part of the problem is that procedures in court are structured, and the judge presides with absolute order. No lawyer would be allowed to speak out so obtrusively and get away with it the way Ortega did, else realistically, he'd be held under contempt and effectively booted.

Court cases are lengthy, especially ones so loaded as this. The opening speech of the lawyer is extremely short, and not quite eloquent enough, but you can take less than a minute to fix that problem by brushing it up a wee bit, then making it seem as though the brevity of it was deliberate- by saying, maybe, that the lawyer's arrogance and confidence of winning was evident in the brevity of his words.

Oh! flashback, and now I realize where I think the issues were. There are three major problems. One is this:

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to... be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence [sic]."

That's from the 6th amendment. See, the judge would have to know ahead of time whether or not Jamie had a lawyer, because the court would be responsible for providing her with one long before the trial to prepare her case unless she specifically refused one. So you might change the question by the judge to be a statement such as, "Miss Dumont, for the record, you have chosen to appear without a lawyer, is this correct?"
Then take her second question and say something like "And you were informed of your right to a lawyer at the moment of your arrest?"

That would all indicate that proper procedure had been followed, unless you wish to have her appeal to the supreme court and let them decide that due process had been violated and therefore she's free....? hehehe you could, but something tells me you already have a plan for the outcome of this.


Anyway, the second major problem was this:

"No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself..."

That's from the 5th amendment. See, the lawyer would not have been allowed to interrogate her, even informally, the way he did unless she herself chose to allow him to do so. And you can pull that off; you could always have the judge interrupt him, stop him, have them go back and forth for a moment, have the judge ask Jamie if she minded answering the question, and have her choose to answer it, for whatever reason. Perhaps she figured the damage was done already.


The third problem was this:

"...to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor..."
Again, 6th amendment. You said she did not have the right to call witnesses, and that is incorrect. Witnesses are compelled to come for her. You might say perhaps that she could think of no one to call, and that she knew that she was no lawyer and would be unable to examine anyone.


Oh hey, that brings up another issue, and a quick solution to the problem. In the examination, the prosecutor- Ortega, in this case- examines a witness first.... at least, according to what I get from my source. So, you could just have him call his first witness and leave off that bit about her not having the right. Just have the judge tell her the prosecution goes first, or something.
Anyway, for future reference, after the prosecutor examines a witness, the defendant is asked if she/he would like to cross-examine the witness. Remember, Jamie should know ahead of time who these witnesses will be.
Once the prosecution calls witnesses, the defendant does the same, and the prosecution in turn is allowed to cross-examine the witnesses of the defendant.
Now, I'm not certain on this point, but I think if the defendant- Jamie- were to choose to go to the witness stand and be her own witness, the prosecution lawyer could then ask her questions. Again, not certain about that. But then, it doesn't matter, because Jamie can't very well ask herself questions, now can she?
heh.
So then I think one all witnesses have been examined, evidence is gone over, and closure is given by both sides. Then as you know the jury goes into the back room and doesn't come out until the verdict is reached, and when the verdict comes the judge gives the sentence if its guilty.


One thing I think would be extremely helpful for you is the book To Kill A Mockingbird. If you've read it, then you'd know- the courtroom scene is amazing, and accurate. Honestly, that and my AP Gov book are what are open on my lap right now, to give you the info I just listed. If you haven't read it, To Kill A Mockingbird is a book in the PoV of a little girl in the south in a time of racial discrimination, and a black man is accused of raping a white woman and taken to trial, and the little girl's father is the defense attorney. The court scene, as I said, is amazing, and the book itself incredible. I'd highly recommend it.
But, for your purposes, the court case begins on chapter 17. My advice is to check it out from the library and read from there onward, until it ends, and even though it's set in the past, it should still be accurate in the proceedings and in the sort of language and shiz used. It's a good read, too, so it won't be hard if you choose to do so, not will it take you long.


....Oh shiz, long post. Hopefully it was helpful to you, at least. If you can get To Kill A Mockingbird, I advise reading it, and look online for the amendments and things. The Amendments you want pertaining to court are amendments 4, 5, 6, 7 (but that's civil suits), 8, and the equal protection and due process clauses of 14.

feel free to pm me, btw. I'm out (finally).
bei'theh!

~sworddance

ouchie! where's Tammy?! You don't need to be 100% exact as to the court details, as half of us don't know what it should be like in real life. I don't anyway.

Another great piece here!

Remember, Jamie should know ahead of time who these witnesses will be.

Witnesses are tricky in court cases, as from what i have learnt in Law, if one side prosecution or defence does not want a specific person to be a witness (As it might ruin their chances in the case) they can ask to have that witness taken off of the stand, as long as they have a witness to replace them. Its all complicated in the court room

But i think you portrayed it well, you don't have to be 100% on this, it's not like someone reading it is going to check it all up lol, well done on what you did do!

Meevs
x

Even if you didn't get it all right, it still hit home pretty well. I don't know why I lvoe court situations so much! But according to what everyone else says, law is pretty flexible. So this is a good go at it. Nice work JC.

I've looked up some more things, and am going to make all the necessary edits soon. When I do I'll repost this. Thanks for your help everybody!

-JC

This was good but as pointed out before it's a tad unrealistic.

I have a few tips though as I take part in the Mock Trial competition and even though it's in Magistrates court and not Crown Court I still know the basics.

1) Jamie would not be allowed to enter like that. Even though she's allowed home she would still be police escorted into the Dock and would give evidence from there.

2) The Legal Advisor would go through the basics.....(are you Miss Dumont? Is your address...etc)

3) Prosecution makes opening speech which is about 5 minutes long.

4) Witnesses sworn in and give evidence from witness box. Cross Examination.

5) At the end of all the witnesses giving evidence the Defence give a closing argument.

6) The legal advisor summarizes the court proceedings and the laws.

I just realized that that is the English Court of law....so it's probably different in American States......

So where's Tammy???
This was really good though and I hope I helped a bit. If you want more info pm me and I'll send you some helpful links and stuff.

Alainna
xxxxxxx

I've looked up a lot, read a few books with detailed court scenes and watched endless courtTV...Just so I could rewrite this and the following chapters. *sigh* I'll post them when I do.