desensitization training

Oh, you guys. YOU GUYS. Guess what’s happening this weekend? A wedding. No, not mine, you dopes. If I ever post on this blog that I’m getting married, I sincerely hope that at least one of you will be a good enough friend to catch the next plane to Lubbock and punch me in my face three times and then step on my toes until I come to my senses.

Which reminds me of this most hilarious story that you may or may not find hilarious but I don’t really see how you can’t laugh at this. This lady I used to work for, Tori, was in town for business for a couple of days this week and she stayed at Ninja Mimi’s house. She’s one of these really high-energy idea people who kindof can’t sit still and is very, very independent and career-minded. Tori is married to Bart and Bart is retired, which means they’re having a little too much togetherness for Tori’s taste these days. Anyway, Tuesday night we were all eating dinner at Ninja Mimi’s house and Tori’s phone rings. And it’s this creepy, evil, ominous-sounding music for the ringtone. So Tori gets up and goes over to her purse to get her phone, and she says, “Oh, that’s Bart’s ringtone.” I’m dying laughing. She says, “I picked it because every time I hear that ringtone, it gives me this mental picture of him just advancing toward me and bossing me, which is kindof what he does in real life.”

HAHA. Now that’s funny. Anyway.

It’s my cousin’s wedding. No, not Cousin Laura, you dopes. If I ever post on this blog that Cousin Laura is getting married, I sincerely hope that at least one of you will be a good enough friend to catch the next plane to Lubbock and stop me from punching Cousin Laura in the face three times and then stepping on her toes until she comes to her senses. But! Don’t stop me from doing that UNTIL she comes to her senses, you guys. Somebody has to be responsible here.

The thing is, my BFF Cali and Cousin Laura and I have a pact. When we all get to be 70, we’re going to all move in together into a big house with a big porch and we’re going to drink and smoke and stuff all day long while sitting on said porch and hurling epithets and curse words and tomatoes at neighbor children. Actually, at the time we made the pact, we said we’d do this when we turn 80, but that’s way too far away. And pretty soon I’m going to make a motion that we change the Age of Curmudgeonry again to 65. I bet it’ll be unanimously approved.

Anyhoozies.

It’s my baby cousin, Holly, who’s getting married. (This is Ninja Mimi’s sister’s daughter, my first cousin.) Which sounds weird, right, because she’s a baby and all. I don’t mean to second guess my aunt and uncle here, approving the marriage of their toddler, but really. Oh wait. She’s 25? WUT.

So Holly is getting married and Ninja Kid is a junior bridesmaid. She’s already informed me that she will allow me to do her makeup that day because I have “many years of experience doing makeup.” I’m not really sure how to take that but I’m choosing to take that to mean that she admires my expert makeup skills and I’m choosing to ignore the part about “many years.”

Also, Ninja Nephew is the ring bearer and he’s really excited about it. He’s stoked about getting to wear a tux because his daddy (Ninja Bro) is an usher and he’s going to be wearing a tux, and Ninja Nephew LOVES it when he gets to dress like his daddy. The other day he told me he knew that his job as a ring bearer was going to be really important and I asked him why and he said it’s because everybody will be looking at him. My goodness, I do love that kid.

Of course you’re wondering what any of this has to do with desensitization. I’m getting to it.

So Holly, my baby toddler kid tween teenaged grown woman cousin, is getting married to this really great guy that everybody loves, and this is a good thing. When I was about Ninja Kid’s age, maybe a little older, Holly was a wee tot. When their family would come to visit our family, or vice versa, I would literally pick her up at the door, set her on my hip, and walk around carrying her for days until we had to leave. Her feet never hit the floor if I had anything to say about it. I did the same exact thing with her older sister, Jenna, when she was a wee tot. If I have scoliosis today, it’s from carrying those two girls around on my hip as a teen. I heart them.

Now then. With all that as background info, I can finally get to my point. For this, you might want to grab onto a table or other sturdy structure nearby. Better yet, you might want to take a seat.

When it comes to weddings, I’m a total schmoop head. I cry at EVERY wedding. Doesn’t matter if I even know the people at all. I cry at all weddings on TV, real or fictional. I cry at all weddings in real life, even when I don’t like one or both of the parties and I expressly disapprove of their coupling. (Haha coupling.) It just does not matter. When the whole auditorium stands and turns to the back of the room to see the beautiful, beaming bride coming down the aisle, I become the Queen of Schmoopville. It’s so embarrassing, but it’s completely 100% out of my control. Holly’s wedding is going to have a trumpet player and a harpist. OMG I do love the harp. Schmoop factor just increased 25x at least. I’m doomed.

So I got this email from Ninja Mimi late last night and it was so funny that it inspired this whole rambling post. Subject line: “start desensitizing.”

Start listening to this 3 times a day to desensitize.  I’ve listened to it 5 times today and it hasn’t worked yet. Makes me a blubbering idiot. After the bridesmaids are in, the doors will be closed at the back. The trumpet player will do the little solo fanfare you will hear at the very beginning and then the doors will swing open and Holly and Roy [my uncle, Holly's dad] come out with the trumpet and harp playing. OMG!!!  Bring a hanky!!

And then there was a link to this:

Oh, you guys. YOU GUYS. Send hankies.

Comments { 4 }

omphaloskepsis: august 2010

Yep, I just checked the calendar and it’s belly button day. Last time, Third Tier Amie specifically requested that I find a picture of shirtless Alcide. In case you’ve been living under a rock and/or without cable (how DO you do it?), Alcide is a werewolf in the HBO series True Blood, which you should be watching. And he’s not just any old werewolf, you guys. He’s a beautiful werewolf. Behold.

(source)

And I’ll totally take more belly button requests if you guys have specific ones you want to see. That sounds pretty weird, doesn’t it.

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1l lost law school: It’s okay, really. You’re supposed to be. It’ll start making sense in a few weeks, hopefully. For me, though, I had no clue what was going on in Contracts AT ALL until the review session for the final exam, and all of a sudden I had maximum Contracts understanding.

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things I dislike: sundays

I know, it seems weird for me to dislike Sunday. Most people who dislike certain days of the week pick Monday. That seems to be the popular thing, anyway. Everybody’s hatin on Monday. Don’t get me wrong: Monday sucks and there’s no getting around it. But it’s not really Monday’s fault. Actually, Monday is a scapegoat. A red herring. A straw man. The worst day of the week, by far, is Sunday. Hear me out on this one, you guys.

There are all sorts of things wrong with Sunday. First of all, your food and drink selections are limited on this day and no other. Chick-fil-a is not open on Sundays. The best hamburgers in the world from Blue Sky Texas cannot be obtained on Sundays. And when I say these are the best hamburgers in the world, you’d better believe they are the best hamburgers in the WORLD. I am a hamburger aficionado and I know these things. Also, in Texas, you can’t buy beer before noon on Sunday and you can’t buy liquor at all. WUT THE.

Guess what else you can’t do on Sunday? Take your kid to ProCuts to get extra layers added to her haircut because she’s not entirely happy with her current look and frankly it’s too heavy to hold curl very well in its present state. If you want to shop at the mall on Sunday, you have to be done by 6:00 because they close early. Also Sunday is the busiest day at the grocery store, except for right before holidays like Thanksgiving, when it’s just atrocious.

As if all that weren’t enough (I mean, the part about not being able to buy beer before noon is a dealbreaker all by itself, really), Sunday is also bad for your sleep hygiene. All week long, Monday through Friday, you wake up early to go to work or school, and each night you get sleepy at a decent hour because you had to get up so early that morning. By the time Friday rolls around, you’re just getting accustomed to waking up early and going to bed around midnight, establishing some semblance of a routine. You’re exhausted from said routine and you crash out early on Friday night. I mean, that IS what you guys do on Friday nights. You’re not going out and partying and having fun and causing mayhem because if you were I know you’d be inviting me and since I haven’t gotten any invitations I take that to mean you’re all sitting at home like me. Lalalala.

Anyway, since you went to bed early Friday night due to sheer exhaustion, you wake up at a respectable time on Saturday morning. Let’s say 9:00 is a good time to wake up on Saturday. But then, since you slept til 9:00, you can’t go to sleep as early on Saturday night as you had been. So maybe you stay up until about 1:30 watching TV and staring at your computer screen and doing other things like that. Then Sunday morning rolls around, and since you stayed up late the night before, maybe on Sunday you sleep even later. Let’s just say you sleep until 9:30 or so. Okay maybe you sleep until 11:00. Whatever. That means that on Sunday night, instead of getting sleepy at a normal time, you’re awake at 2:30 (which is Monday morning by now of course) writing a blog post about how much you hate Sundays because you’re just not sleepy. All the while knowing that your alarm clock is going to go off at 6:30 on Monday morning, which is of course just 4 hours from now, yet you can’t seem to get sleepy and it’s all Sunday’s fault because Sunday made you sleep in and now your days and nights are mixed up again. And you spend all day Monday in a haze because you didn’t get enough sleep and you blame all your troubles on Monday, when in fact Sunday is to blame.

So, fellow citizens of the interwebz, I posit that Monday is viewed in a negative light mainly because of how much Sunday sucks. Until this very moment, Sunday has flown under the radar and has passed the buck to Monday. NO MORE. Today I am exposing Sunday for the crappy day that it is. And indeed Sunday is full of crap. Crappity crap crap. Resist the urge to defame Monday! Join the Anti-Sunday Society (ASS)! Operators are standing by.

Comments { 6 }

this week in numbers: cute boy edition

Here’s a little experiment that’s really more of a copout because I just want to get something posted quickly this morning. But still, this might be fun. For me. And that’s what it’s all about, really.

  • 0: Number of nights I went to bed before midnight.
  • 1: Number of job interviews I had. Incidentally, this is also how many employment offers I got. Woot! Paychecks are my favorite.
  • 2: Number of reading assignments I actually fully completed before class time. Also the number of episodes of Weeds I watched. Love that show. You guys should be watching it because it’s really good. Also it has Silas: Shut up. He’s 23. I checked.
  • 3: Number of days I brought my lunch to school and had to hide it in my lawbrary carrel rather than the refrigerator because the fridges were so CHUGGING full that the doors wouldn’t even shut properly. Gah. Go home for lunch more, you guys. Give me my spot in the fridge. Also the number of episodes of Hung I caught up on this week. This show is just okay, really, but I keep watching it because I’ve watched it from the beginning. It has its moments.
  • 4: Number of Lo-Carb Monster drinks I had this week. Welcome back to law school, bitches. Also the number of classes that I think I actually enjoy this semester. World record!
  • 5: Number of evenings I wanted to sit and write a substantive blog post, but instead I stared at the wall for a while. I’ll try to do better, I promise.
  • 6: Number of curse words I uttered when I discovered that Mars would not, in fact, appear as large as the moon in the sky on August 27, 2010, at 12:30 a.m. Also the number of classes I’m taking. I think I need a scheduling intervention.
  • 7: Number of times I cursed at the stupid undergrads who clogged up my parking lot at school. Yes, I said MY parking lot. Wanna fight?
  • 8: Number of times in approximately 5 minutes that I wished Alcide would come back to visit True Blood again. I sure do miss him.
  • 5487: number of times I’ve whispered “I love you” to my new Mac baby, which I used to look up all these pictures of cute boys just for y’all. You’re welcome.

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NK book review: What I Saw and How I Lied

Ninja Kid reads like it’s going out of style and writes short reviews of the books she reads. These posts are edited for punctuation only, and never for content.

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The book What I Saw and How I Lied is a murder mystery about Evelyn Spooner, set after World War II was over and people were just starting to get up on their feet again. Evelyn, or “Evie,” is a fifteen-year-old girl who lives in Queens, New York, with her mother, Beverly Spooner, her step-father, Joe Spooner, and her Grandma Glad. The family (excepting Grandma Glad) drives to Palm Beach, Florida, for a spur-of-the-moment trip in the fall when everything was closed. Little did they know what they were getting themselves into.

I liked What I Saw and How I Lied because it was a very well written mystery, with great details about Florida and the 1947 hurricane. I personally wished it had ended differently than it did, but I didn’t dislike the ending. It was a very well thought-out plot with lots of building up to the end.

I think What I Saw and How I Lied would be a great book for teenage girls who like mystery and romance books. It gives a good history lesson about how life was after World War II ended.

Comments { 0 }

sunday snippets 08.22.10

Law school starts back tomorrow. Meh.

Having an 8:00 class on Mondays and Wednesdays (Criminal Practice Skills FTW) means that I have to set my alarm for 6:30 on those days. I haven’t woken up at 6:30 on a regular basis since, well, since spring semester, when I had to do it FOUR times a week. It goes without saying that I have denounced myself a million times over for being interested in criminal law at all, which obviously led me to enroll in this godforsaken 8:00 class.

I am determined to do three things differently this year.

  1. Start outlining earlier, and maybe even actually finish one, which is something I have yet to do. I feel like doing a whole outline would be really beneficial, but I never can make myself start early enough/stay with it long enough to finish.
  2. Continue reading fiction, even if it’s just a few pages at a time. There are so many gazillion books out there that I want to read, and I’m 100% sure I can work in some leisure reading somewhere.
  3. Continue blogging no matter what. I let the blog completely die during spring semester of last year and I refuse to let that happen again.

Do any of you 2Ls or 3Ls have things you’re going to do differently this school year? I’d love to hear ‘em.

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BUT! Methinks an 8:00 class might be a little more tolerable now that I’ve got my new Precious. Oh? Didn’t you hear? Okay, I’ll give you a hint: 13 INCHES OF PURE JOY. Wanna take a guess?

What?! Get your filty dirty smutty brains out of the gutter, you guys. Don’t be ridiculous. Gah. You guys embarrass me.

Okay, stop guessing. Good grief. I GOT A NEW MACBOOK PRO. AND! I LOVE IT. You guys, poor little ol’ me never had a Mac before. I always had to have a PC for my work stuff, so that’s just always what I used. WELL. Those days are OVAH. Me + Mac = luv 4eva.

So I downloaded a 30-day trial of Circus Ponies Notebook for school (I used Microsoft OneNote on my PC laptop last year and loved it), but some Mac aficionados have informed me that Omni Outliner is much more powerful and fantabulous. Any of y’all wanna weigh in on that?

Also: feast your eyes on THIS. I know that Scrivener is marketed as more of a storyboarding type of writer’s tool, but OMG DID YOU SEE THE NOTECARD THINGIES ON THE CORKBOARD THAT YOU CAN MOVE AROUND. Swoooooon. And Firecracker told me that she uses it for writing research papers and such. WANT. Take note, people who buy me presents.

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Lately I’ve been thinking about this whole blogging thing in general. There are some people who have more than one blog, and each blog is devoted to a specific topic or concept. For example, Daisy JD has her wonderful blog about her life and such, plus a super blog called The Kitchenettes, which is devoted to cooking and recipes. I just lump everything all together into one blog. Does that make mine too random and convoluted? Should I branch out and create separate blogs for different facets of my life? If so, to which categories should I devote a separate blog?

(Hint: the correct answer is NO. I would much prefer to keep everything on one blog; otherwise, I’m afraid the posts on each separate blog would be few and far between, as I’m not sure I have enough material to keep more than one blog updated on a regular basis. So really, if you could just validate and praise me at this point, I’d be much obliged. See? This is easy. I don’t give hard tests.)

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Ninja Kid’s dance company held auditions yesterday and she was chosen for company again this year. Also, she went to her first real dance on Saturday night as part of this little social club (?) she joined this year, called Belles and Beaux, and they hold four dances per year for kids her age with chaperones and such. She looked really pretty, didn’t she?

Comments { 8 }

NK book review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the story about Francie Nolan and her family’s struggles in the early 1900s. The Nolan family lives in the poor neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. In the beginning of the book, Francie is eleven years old and her brother, Neeley, is ten. Johnny Nolan, Francie’s father, is an alcoholic singing waiter at different restaurants. Katie Nolan, Francie’s mother, is a janitress for the apartment building they live in. The Nolan family deals with living during World War I, and as the Nolan children grow up, things become more difficult.

I liked A Tree Grows in Brooklyn because the author, Betty Smith, was very good about producing much detail by being very meticulous with her writing. What I loved about the book was the closeness I felt toward Francie, and my favorite thing was the way the book ended. I absolutely loved the ending.

I would recommend this book to everyone, young or old. I think it’s aimed more toward people my age because it has good life lessons to help you grow into the person you’re going to be, and will help you to accept who you are.

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what I saw at the courthouse, part 3

(click here for part 1 and here for part 2)

Okay I promise this is the last installment of my little adventure. It’s just that what happened on the last day of the trial has stuck with me ever since, and actually I hope I never forget that moment.

So the previous day, the Department rested its case, then BB put the mom back on the stand for a while and then rested his case, then the attorney for the dad (whose rights were also being terminated) and the ad litem for the two girls didn’t put on any case at all. So the trial was over, and the jury was dismissed. Then all the lawyers (and I!) went back into the judge’s chambers to work on the jury charge.

A jury charge is something I had never given any thought to at all before in my life. Somehow I knew nothing about this, like not even that this whole process existed. I guess I just thought that juries were given some standard forms to answer the questions before them and that was that. Turns out it’s more complicated.

The CPS lawyer had already drafted a preliminary jury charge, so she had her secretary email it over, and we were all given a copy to review. This was about a five- or six-page document that explained the pertinent law, definitions of terms, and the actual questions that the jury was to answer. The jury charge is super important, because the way things are phrased and the words used can influence the jury to some extent, so the lawyers all argue over what to take out and how to rephrase things. For example, the definition of “endanger” included the phrase “metaphysical injury” and one of the lawyers had a complaint about the word “metaphysical” and claimed to not know what it means, so surely the jury couldn’t be expected to know, and so it should be removed. That kind of stuff. Anyway, they were finally able to come up with a jury charge that was satisfactory to everybody, and then we all went home.

The following morning, all that was left to do was to hear closing arguments, so everybody did that in their turn. Then the judge read the jury charge to the jury and off they went to deliberate. At first, some of the lawyers were afraid to even go upstairs to get a cup of coffee because they were convinced that the jury would be back in a flash. But we waited, and we waited, and we waited some more, and then BB suggested that we go down to one of the other courtrooms to watch some arraignments. So we did, and BB kept checking his watch, and an hour came and went, and we kept watching criminal court. Then, like 90 minutes into deliberations, the jury had a question. It was a weird question, or at least phrased weirdly, and nobody could quite figure out what they were really asking, but it seemed to indicate that the jury agreed that the state had the grounds to terminate but that perhaps they could not agree on whether to terminate would be in the children’s best interest. (In a termination case in Texas, it only takes 10 of the 12 jurors to agree to terminate, but at a minimum the same 10 must agree on all questions.) So the judge basically copied and pasted some parts of the jury charge and sent it back to them. Then BB and I headed back to criminal court, and we had no sooner sat down than we got notice that they were ready with the verdict. So in we went.

The jury filed in, and not one of them made eye contact with the mom. Then the judge read the verdict, which was unanimously in favor of terminating the parental rights of both the mom and the dad, and then the jury was dismissed. What happened next is the thing I hope I never ever forget.

So this probably sounds rather melodramatic, but as the judge was reading the verdict I was watching the mom (I was standing behind her so I couldn’t see her face). You know how in the movies, when somebody gets some bad news or something, and they have that shot of the person’s field of vision being blacked out, starting at the periphery and moving in quickly toward the center? Like the whole world is closing in on them? In my mind’s eye, that’s what was going on in the mom’s head as she heard the judge say that she had just lost her kids forever. It was very matter-of-fact, as in, “As to question 1, the answer is yes,” etc., and I wasn’t sure at first whether the mom completely understood what had just happened. But at some point (seemed like a long time but probably wasn’t) her body language changed and it was clear that she got it. The judge thanked the jury and dismissed them, and they left the courtroom.

Then one of the attorneys said something like, “Well, I’m off to [another city] now for a well deserved vacation.” Laughter. Then another person said, “Oh, have a great time! Be sure to take lots of pictures!” More laughter. Then the CPS case worker said, “I’ll be there too! I’m getting married there this weekend!” Even more laughter. And someone else said, “That’s right! Congratulations! Now I’ll have to learn your new name!” Laughter.

And while all this was going on, all this celebrating and discussion of future plans and general happy-happy-joy-joy frivolity, there at the table stood the mom who’d just been told that she was no longer legally the mother of her two little girls. And next to her stood BB, visibly disgusted with the complete lack of humanity on display as this mother’s life just came to a screeching halt.

It made me sick to my stomach.

And then it made me angry. And I’m still kinda pissed off about it, actually.

I have the ability to be very cynical. It’s not that hard for me to slip into a way of thinking that sortof dehumanizes individuals and allows me to think of people I don’t know as objects rather than humans with emotions. I’m not particularly proud of that, but I will say that it’s come in handy more than once in my life when I’ve needed to completely disconnect my emotions from my decision-making process in order to think clearly. I’m reflexively skeptical and I generally approach things from a standpoint of I don’t believe you just on your word but I’m open to being convinced if you have proof.

I say all this, because now I know that there are people out there who are way better at this whole disconnect thing than I ever thought about being. And that’s not meant as a compliment. The majority of people in that room were completely oblivious to the fact that this lady just had her kids taken away from her FOREVER. It was all jokey-joke, yay vacation, yay I’m getting married, hahaha, yay for our privileged lives. This was long before the mom had had a chance to exit the room. So there she stood, processing what had just happened, the reality sinking in, while almost everyone around her was… celebrating? I can’t think of the right word to describe it. It. Was. Sickening.

I understand that it’s a kind of coping mechanism that develops over time. It’s not unique to lawyers, either. I know doctors struggle with the same balancing act between getting too emotionally invested in a patient such that it clouds the doctor’s judgment, versus treating patients like herded cattle. I get it. A lawyer has to keep a certain distance in order to save his own sanity and to effectively represent his client. But a lawyer should never forget that his clients are human beings, not cattle, not pieces of paper or cases. Humans. Who should be afforded some degree of basic human dignity.

May I never ever forget the knot in my stomach that I got while the verdict was being read; the pang of sadness and finality I had when it became clear that the mom realized what had happened; and the confusion, then disbelief, then disgust, then white hot anger I felt after watching the behavior of the other people in the courtroom. There just has to be a way to strike a balance. Surely it’s not inevitable that I, too, will become so callous and insensitive that I immediately brag about my vacation plans after a verdict is read. If it is inevitable, then I have chosen the wrong profession.

Comments { 13 }

what I saw at the courthouse, part 2

(click here for part 1)

I failed to mention how wonderfully nice the judge in this case was to me. She allowed me to accompany BB into chambers every time the lawyers went back, even if it was just to shoot the shit. So when the lawyers all returned to chambers to say whom they were going to strike from the jury panel and all that, I was there, behind the scenes, soaking it all in. It was pretty cool. The other lawyers on the case were really nice to me, too, seemingly happy to answer my questions and also eager to point out when they would have done something differently than one of the other lawyers did. Ha.

So we picked a jury and then proceeded to opening arguments. But first: why do people hate jury duty? Honestly, I don’t get it. My whole life I’ve wanted to be on a jury. I’ve been summoned a couple of times, but each time I was a student and had to file the exemption. But really, I’m not kidding, somebody please PLEASE put me on your jury. I don’t get why people rolled their eyes in disgust as their numbers were called. You got something better to do than sit in court and hand out justice??? Pfffff.

I’m a dork. You all know this by now. Anyway.

Opening arguments. Mostly underwhelming, to be honest, except for BB. You guys, BB is like brilliant when he’s giving a soliloquy. Not even kidding. He had two jurors almost in tears. He’s really, really good.

Then the Department called its first witness, the mom (our client).

Now this client, the mom, she’s not about to win any parenting awards. She’s transient, at best, and really more like homeless. She has an IQ in the mid 80s. She has three kids under the age of 4 (one baby born in the time since the first two kids were removed, of whom the mom still has custody) and she’s not really sure who the father of any of them is. The guy whom she now claims is the father of all three girls, who is currently in prison in Louisiana for check fraud, knocked out both of her front teeth in a fight. She and her mother and her friend and her boyfriend of the moment and whichever kids she has with her move around from place to place, never really staying anywhere longer than a few weeks or maybe a month at a time. Sometimes they sleep at the Salvation Army. Sometimes they stay with a friend. Nobody really works at a job, at least not for long. They use public transportation to get everywhere they go, which makes going anywhere at least an hour-long trip. They survive on government assistance and on the benevolence of local churches and outreach groups.

So you get the picture, right? And maybe you think, You know, that’s really no kind of life for three babies. And you’d be right. It sounds to me like a pretty sucky life.

But.

Never, not once, during all the months that the mom has been monitored by CPS, has she failed a drug test. She simply is not a drug user.

Never, not once, has one of those kids slept outside for even one night. Never. On the nights when she didn’t have shelter, the mom would send her kids to stay with a friend if she could arrange it. Most of the time that would work out just fine. There was this one time, though, when she couldn’t find anywhere for her baby to sleep with a roof over her head. No friends’ houses, no Salvation Army, no nothing. So what did the mom do? She took her baby and she somehow made it to Wal-Mart. She got a basket with a baby seat built in, and she put her baby girl in that seat, and she pushed that baby around the store for seven hours so that the baby could sleep.

The state can’t take your kids away from you just because you’re poor. Even being homeless isn’t enough. The state is supposed to be able to exercise this power only in cases of abuse or neglect. In a termination case, the state must prove two things: (1) that there is at least one ground for termination, and (2) that termination is in the child’s best interest. Oh, and as it turns out, one of the grounds for termination is noncompliance with the service plan, which you’re forced to try to follow when your kids are initially removed from your home.

So let’s be clear: The state comes in and removes your kids because some random person who shall remain unidentified called in with some concern. The state says, Sorry, mom, we’re going to take your kids away, and for the next 18 months you have to meet all these requirements, and that will prove to us that you’re a good parent after all. Sign here. You meet some of the requirements, maybe even most, but not all, and presto! The state now has grounds to terminate your parental rights forever and ever. Now all the state has to do is convince a judge or a jury that it’s in the child’s best interest for her to remain with the foster parents who’ve been caring for her for the last 18 months. It’s not really a hard sell for the state.

The mom missed some of her visits during the 18 months she was on the service plan. She even failed to call ahead a few times to cancel her visits. Of course, she sometimes has no phone and never has transportation of her own, but the state apparently doesn’t think that should count as much of an obstacle. Nevermind the fact that as time went on her oldest child grew less and less excited to see her each time she would visit. Nevermind the fact that the middle child was removed from the home at age 5 weeks and has never known any mother other than her foster mother, effectively making the biological mom a stranger. Nevermind the fact that the mom was only allowed to visit her children for two hours a week, in a room with a two-way mirror behind which some 23-year-old CPS case worker with no kids of her own sat, pen poised, judging her parenting ability. She missed some visits, and she couldn’t (or wouldn’t, maybe) hold down a job, but she completed her parenting classes and she passed all her drug tests. Not enough. After deliberating for almost two hours, the jury voted unanimously to terminate her parental rights.

Do I think those kids are going to be better off with their foster parents, who are now free to adopt both girls? Sure. They’ll almost certainly have a better life. I can’t say that I’d have voted differently had I been on the jury. But that doesn’t mean that I like the system or the way it works. It’s not supposed to be about giving kids a better life. It’s supposed to be about whether or not a person’s constitutionally protected parental rights should be terminated. So while we lost the case, and the mom lost the right to parent her two oldest daughters, the kids gained a more stable home environment (presumably, anyway) and the possibility of a future existence that doesn’t only depend on the generosity of the government and others. The outcome in this case is good, but the system as a whole and the procedures employed by CPS just don’t sit right with me.

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what I saw at the courthouse, part 1

So you’ll remember I’ve been doing a little work for an attorney, BB, in another town. Well, BB had a jury trial a couple of weeks ago in BB-town, and he asked me if I wanted to come down and help him with voir dire and just to watch the whole trial process in general, start to finish. I told him I’d have to think about it for a while because it just didn’t sound very fun at all.

LOL WUT.

Of course I took him up on it! Are you kidding me?

I went to BB-town and reported to the courthouse on Monday morning for voir dire. Potential jurors were supposed to have been there by 8:30, and then the judge talked to them for a while and dismissed a few of them for whatever reason. Then, around 10:15 or so, the lawyers all filed into the courtroom and the voir dire process really began.

Actually, first I should give you some background on the case. BB had been appointed to represent the mother of these two kids at the time that the kids were removed from the home by Child Protective Services (CPS). Here’s my understanding of how the system works (and please correct me if I’m misstating anything):

  1. Somebody, anybody, calls in an “intake” to CPS, expressing concern for the safety and welfare of some children somewhere.
  2. CPS goes out to investigate the situation. If CPS finds reason to believe that the children are suffering from abuse or neglect, CPS may at that time remove the children from the home on an emergency basis. If CPS finds nothing amiss, the kids get to stay and the parent may or may not continue to be investigated to the satisfaction of CPS.
  3. If the kids are removed, there must be a hearing in front of a judge within 14 days. At the hearing, the judge will decide, based on the evidence, whether the children at that point should be returned to the home or should remain in the temporary custody of CPS.
  4. If the kids stay with CPS, then a service plan is drawn up whereby the parent agrees to meet certain goals and requirements during an 18-month period. These can include things like parenting classes, anger management classes, substance abuse treatment, getting and holding a job, showing up to all scheduled visits with your kids and calling in advance if you can’t make it, etc.
  5. Toward the end of the 18-month period, CPS assesses the parent’s compliance with the service plan. Then, CPS makes a recommendation regarding whether (a) the kids should be returned to the home or (b) the parent’s rights should be terminated.
  6. If CPS recommends termination of parental rights, the parent has the right to request a jury trial rather than a bench trial. This is what BB’s client chose.

So, voir dire. What a fascinating process. The panel consisted of 43 people by the time the lawyers got started, and each lawyer in turn got to talk to and ask questions of the people who would eventually be deciding the case. My task was to sit and watch the panel for body language and to take copious notes. I couldn’t have been more entertained. Not even kidding. It was a great learning experience and I’m so thankful that I got to observe it and participate in it.

BB told me that voir dire is not only about picking a jury, but also about influencing the jury with the questions that you ask. I failed to recognize the significance of this second element until the case was over, in retrospect. The way that a lawyer phrases questions in voir dire can and does influence the way a juror makes decisions in the deliberation room. Put simply, voir dire can make or break your case. BB said that he’d gone to a voir dire workshop or seminar and a lawyer from Dallas told a story of a doctor he’d represented who was on trial for fondling a 13-year-old girl or something horrible like that. This lawyer did extensive research with mock jurors and found that if he asked certain questions about this doctor’s behavior in a certain way, he could actually get an “I’m-not-so-sure-this-is-wrong-in-this-situation” type of response from a potential juror in voir dire. The end result was that the doctor was acquitted at trial, thanks to effective voir dire.

Voir dire can be everything.

This was only BB’s second voir dire ever, and he felt like he didn’t do a very good job. I thought he did fine, and I thought we ended up with a decent jury. I asked BB which class I should take in law school to learn how to do voir dire. He informed me that there isn’t one that he knows of, that it’s just something you have to get out there and do. Yikes. It’s crucial to winning a case, and yet they don’t teach it in law school? Figures.

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