But the cops who did it were totally nice and soccer-mom-esque. They were like, "Okay, honey, just put your finger there. There ya go." It was so blah, nothing. No great story. . .
Then, the next day, at nine a.m., we had our court date, a.k.a THE TRIAL. We were even more anxious about this, of course. We were going back and forth on what we were going to do:
Plead guilty?
Plead no contest?
Plead not guilty? No, because that way we'd have to come back again, even though the citing cops did, according to popular opinion, violate our consitutional rights by searching our car before granted permission.
We waited in the lobby for a while before all filing into court, and then stood when the Judge, His Honor John Southhard entered. Immediately I felt a litle more at ease. He was very funny, easy-going, fairly younger than the stern old judge I imagined, and a GUY. I was so afraid we'd get a sassy Judge Judy clone, but yeay! We got this guy.
He went through all our rights, la-dee-da, and we whispered to each other, after listening to what he said, that we should plead "no contest."
There was this one punk who got up in the middle of a case and when the bailiff told him to sit down, he's like, "I gotta plane to catch."
Whoa-ho. Giving the judge attitude. The judge asked him when and he said, "10:15." It was nine-thirty at the time. Then the judge asked him if he was a defendant and he was.
The judge was like, "sit down."
He was probably thinking what we all were. "What an idiot!" Who plans their flight right when they've got a court date, and who sasses a judge? Not only that, but his pants were falling off his ass. Who dresses like that for court?
The judge added, "We'll do the young man who's pants are falling off next, " and then smirked. He was cool.
A little while later Michelle was called up, and he saw that all three of us were there together so we all got to go up. He read all our names but kept stumbling on mine, but making flirty guesses at how to say it. I started to feel even more optimistic, but then the judge told us, "As you probably learned in high school, the law dictates that any minor found with alcohol must have their license suspended for a year."
Me mouth dropped, my heart dropped, I was heart-broken, I couldn't believe my ears. A year! No licence for a year. As a matter of fact I didn't think it would affect our licence, since it was a non-driving misdemeanor, as it states on the citation, but I suppose I was wrong. I could hear Michelle gasp next to me. Colleen was like, meh, but she doesn't drive. He waited a beat for this to sink it, but then he grinned and said, "Buuuut, there is an alternative, it's called a sentence-diversion program and it's only for first-time offenders, which you are. You're from San Francisco, so you know all about diversion, they diverge everything there! Hahaha."
We waited patiently for his point, hoping, hoping that there was a loophole to losing our licence for a year, and he was going to tell us it.
"If you go to this class, that's six hours on one Saturday, and show me you went, we can fix that."
Yeay! So we'd only have our licences suspended until then? I asked him, and he said, "No, actually, I'm not going to take any consequences on your licence. Just go to that class and then show me you went."
Michelle and I were ecstatic, and Colleen joined us when he said, "So I'll find you not guilty."
NO CRIMINAL RECORD!!!! Acquitted!
So bascially, all we have to do is spend one saturday at a total S.H.-health class-style thing. Ha, I bet we'll even see people from S.H. We're going to do it over winter break so we'll all be in the city from school and we can go together.
This is the best thing that could have happened. No fines (we just have to pay for the class but there are no additional fees on that) and no licence consequences, and no record! Let's hear it for Flirty-McFlirtsalot the judge! Bet everyone's like, "Man, I hope I get Judge Southard!" And we did, hah.
My Latest Effort - Monday, August 11, 2003
Missstik - Sunday June 29th, 2003
*Melt* - Friday June 27th, 2003
These Are The Days, They Really Are. - Wednesday June 25th, 2003
It's HERE! It's Finally Here!!! - Saturday June 21st, 2003