Court room antics.

Well, it ain't Judge Judy! Spent the day in court trying to find out what the "system" is going to do with my prodigal brother. (Seems he slept through his court date, and lost his paperwork.) Its time to get him off the streets. He swears he is not ill...but my mileage may differ. There is still a very strong bias against mental illness in our society...every where I look there is another charity auction for the Children's Hospital, but never EVER have I seen a charity auction for the Royal Ottawa [mental] Hospital. Ahh...but that is a subject for another rant later on. Right now, I am still amazed at the antics of the court room!

Showed up at 7:30, to try and get some information about what and where. Lots of people, lots of courtrooms. Found the courtroom where the bail hearings were to be held. fortunately only one courtroom for bail hearings today so I got the right one first time. The crown prosecuter, obviously giving me the brush off was "on form" as the meanest dinosaur in the valley. Her behavior at the time struck me as interesting...and it took me a week to figure it out. The brusque manner, the brush off made sense, as did her unwillingness to talk to a friend of the guy in the dock. Her statement that "I don't have the time to talk to you...you talk to Mr. Lxxxxx, he is the defense attourney. Then she proceeds to spend the next 5 minutes or so exclaiming over a clerk's shoes and wondering where she got them! Didn't have time indeed! I suppose she figured I was like most families of perps and wanted an "in" to the prosecutor. I can understand that. Then, when I got this incredibly busy defense attourney to listen to me, he was agast that my bro had NO representation, and NO brief on him at all! So he broke into the "shoe" conversation to get his brief. Oh right, well, here you are...she says, as she pulls out the paperwork to give to the defense. Mr. Lxxxxx had almost 3 minutes to read the brief before showtime! This was not enough, though he DID get a chance to visit my Bro instead of getting his lunch.
Needless to say, we hung about until about 3 in the afternoon, to hear the defense explain that he needed the case to be held over until the next day so that he could prepare a proper brief. So the bro spends another night in cells because the Prosecuting Attourney was more interested in the clerk's shoes than in getting the correct paperwork to the defense.
Perhaps I am being needlessly harsh...because certainly once showtime started, the court was a hive of activity. Two clerks in full robes were bustling about being very officious, moving files about, two court reporters recording every utterance....two Crown Prosecuters, one Provincial, one Federal were busy sorting out federal and provincial responsiblities. Finding court dates and courtroom "slots" . It was kind of neat...they were speaking in code all the time! Imagine the poor kid wearing the hoodie standing behind the thick glass in the dock listening to this: This is John Smith, he is here under allegations of section 41 subsection 3, 7 and 19. "Does he have a form 1?" No, he doens't need one, He has a federal 31a. "Ahh, well, does the federal prosecuter have the 39w? Yes, good then. "I'll need a copy of that please" Here you go then. Thank You....a slot is available on Tuesday, 2:30 PM 14 September Is there a surety here? Good...Mr John Smith, you are released in custody of your grandmother, and you will appear in courtroom 13 on 14 September 2005. If you fail to appear, you will personally laible for 300 dollars bail and your grandmother will be liable for 300 dollars bail. Do you understand? The poor yob in the dock who hasn't understood a word up until this point understands "Bail", "Grandmother" and "release". Yes Your Worship, he says, and the cop with no gun takes him away and cuffs him again.
That was a week ago, and I am still shaking my head!