The Trial
My trial was yesterday morning. I guess I should start by telling you guys the outcome before I get into the story:
The case was dismissed without even being tried. I am off scot free. Woohoo!
I arrived at the City and County building just after 8:00am. Mike was there, just like I thought he would be. He looked like a drowned rat. He was wearing a dress shirt that was bigger than him and had his hair tied back. He looked very serious and self-righteous. I could tell he thought he was going to win. He probably figured I'd run out of the room crying and learn a hard life lesson. After all, what would I do without passive-aggressive vindictive exes to show me tough love?
I sat in the back of the courtroom. I saw him looking to the side so he could see me out of the corner of his eye. I shook my head at him. He responded by grinning the most evil grin I think I've ever seen. It was obvious the intention was for it to look evil. It wasn't a genuine grin. I think he was trying to intimidate me. It was actually really creepy, and my first thought was how lucky it was that he never did anything with his psych degree. I could easily see him grinning that "you have no idea what you're in for" grin at some poor, helpless patient as he injected them with horrible drugs as they were kicking and screaming.
My lawyer came and talked to me. He told me he had made one last attempt to get the prosecutor to drop the case but he would not do it. He also told me there was another case set for trial that was a priority over mine, so I might have to reset it for another month later, or even longer. When we went in front of the judge she set it for trial for 9:30 but told us if the other case was tried we would have to reschedule. We went out into the hallway and he gave me another quick rundown of what he had in store for the cross-examination, and also told me about the process of selecting jurors.
Erik and Danny showed up shortly after. Danny was surprised at what Mike looked like. My lawyer came back over and I told him about all the times someone would see Mike and I making out and think we were two girls. We cracked jokes on him for a little bit, and I got pretty fired up talking about what an evil, malicious little shit he is. I could see him getting visibly annoyed, probably because he was taking the whole thing so seriously and there we were sitting in the back giggling. I'm not sure if he could hear what we were saying or not. I guess my lawyer noticed too because he said, "I think Mike is intimidated by your little support group." I agreed and told him that since last time I was all angsty and had to leave the room crying, he was probably hoping for more of the same. I said, "He does hate me quite a bit." My lawyer replied, "No, he hates losing. His hate for you is secondary."
We waited for a little bit and just chit-chatted. My lawyer found out all the things both sides would be allowed to bring up and all that good stuff. He had agreed with the prosecutor that he could play the 911 tape if we could play Mike's video interview. Mike's interview is unbelievable. They asked him why he was there and he replied with, "What are the charges we want again?" He also told a ridiculous amount of lies and said things that conflicted with his original story. After all, he was pretty wasted when the cops came. I doubt he remembered much. He said he was afraid I was going to break his door down when in his original statement he had said there was no damage to the door and on the 911 tape I just knocked a couple of times. He also said he was afraid for his life, whereas when the cops came he said everything was fine and he didn't want me arrested. Probably his biggest lie though was: "They (the police) just asked me a few questions pertaining to my name, her name, things of that nature." when in reality they asked him a lot of questions about what had happened. "Do you feel threatened?" "Do you think we need to detain her?" Things of that nature. I'm sure he didn't want to admit that he had said he was totally fine at the time. It was amazing how calm he was for someone who was supposedly afraid for his life.
It turned out the guy who was set for trial had decided to take a plea bargain instead, so we were going to go ahead with the trial. My lawyer was back and forth from sitting with me to up talking to the prosecutor and various other people. He told me that some other lawyer was there from a law firm whose name I can't remember, simply to observe the trial. Apparently he had told that guy all about the case and that guy had said it would be positively stupid for the prosecution to go ahead with it. He also told me that after talking to the prosecutor he was starting to think I might have to testify. Mike's side of the story was that I had just shown up at the Hi Dive, and that we never talked on the phone beforehand. I was completely shocked, as I figured a self-righteous little prick like him would have some kind of moral opposition to perjury, but it seems once again I thought too highly of him. I wished Salem was there. It had never occurred to me that we might need him as a witness, but I also didn't think Mike was going to bold-faced lie like that. I guess I should have assumed it. He lied about everything else. Salem was standing right next to me that night when I was on the phone with Mike asking him if he wanted to come down to the Hi Dive, and he saw me go outside to meet him when I talked to him a second time and he said he was on his way.
It was getting close to time for the trial. My lawyer asked me to go outside with his laptop and watch the video interview one more time to see if we missed anything, and right as I was about to stand up the prosecutor walked up to him and whispered, "Dismissal. I'm just getting sick of it." I nearly jumped out of my seat but my lawyer told me to be cool for just a few minutes. Then I saw him hand the prosecutor a piece of paper. I could vaguely see what was on it, and I recognized it immediately. It was a copy of the email I had sent Mike before he decided to go down to the station and report me. It was what set him off. He actually went down to the station twice, not just once. The first time he said he wanted to file felony menacing charges and nothing came of that, so he went home, came back and filed domestic violence charges. I saw the prosecutor laughing a little bit as he read it. This is what it said:
Do not, I repeat, do not ever make any attempt to contact me ever again. You are blocked from my AIM. If you send me an email, a myspace message, or leave me a livejournal comment I will delete it without reading it. If you call me I will not answer, and if you leave a message I will delete it without listening to it. If you run into me somewhere even 20 years from now do not attempt to say hello. If we happen to be at the same place at the same time, here's how shit will go: You don't see me, I don't see you. Nothing, no unforseen circumstance will ever change this. There are no doors of possibility. No amount of time will make me come around. This is permanent and final. You are a terrible person and I can only look forward to the day that karma finds its way back to you. If you have any problem with this email or would like to discuss the matter further, that's tough shit. You are now dead to me.
Robin
Within less than a minute someone came and escorted Mike into the hallway to tell him that the case was dismissed. We still had to go in front of the judge again, and when the prosecutor said he wanted to dismiss the case the judge asked why. He replied with something along the lines of, "We had our doubts about this case anyway, and now some new evidence has come to light that changes everything." This is the part I remember verbatim: "On the one hand, we have the defendant on tape banging on the door in a disturbing manner, and on the other hand we have the victim seemingly undisturbed by the banging." He told the judge he didn't think the city had any way to prove the case, so she gave the ok. Dismissed.
Afterwards my lawyer relayed back to me the conversation to me that he, the prosecutor and the other lawyer had had just a few moments prior.
My lawyer: "Do you want to hear about this case we're about to go to trial on?"
Other lawyer: "Sure." (my lawyer tells him all about it)
Other lawyer to prosecutor: "Are you fucking crazy?"
Prosecutor: "Wait, just listen to this tape." (plays 911 call)
My lawyer to prosecutor: "Hey, why don't you let him try this case for you?"
Other lawyer: "Very funny. I wouldn't try this piece of shit loser."
He also had not shown the email to the prosecutor until then. That was going to be our surprise attack during the trial. The reason he had given him a copy after he had already decided to dismiss it was so he could feel better about doing so and also not get in trouble for it. Lawyers have to explain why they dismiss every case, so that email coming to light at the last minute was a damn good reason. He also told me about the conversation they had after he had read the email.
Prosecutor: "You mean to tell me it took him 22 hours to report this, she sent this email at 6:55pm, and he filed his report at ----"
My lawyer: "Yep. Just long enough to read the statutes on menacing and figure out exactly what he wanted to charge his ex-girlfriend with."
They both laughed about it.
After all was said and done my lawyer asked me if I was all paid up, and he said he thought I was. I told him I wasn't sure and he may want to check his records. I still owe him $150 but considering my current financial situation I figured I might not be able to pay him for a while and I didn't know how to tell him. However, he told me if I am paid up I got my money's worth and if not, not to worry about it. That was so nice of him.
Here Danny, Erik and I thought we were going to be there all day and by 10:30 we were at Starbuck's. We hung out there for a while and then I went shoe shopping and back to Danny's place. I had to call a bunch of people and tell them what happened. It was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Casey picked me up in the early evening and we went and got Salem from the light rail station and my sister from Lakewood. We all went to the Frontier for celebratory karaoke. About 9 people other than myself showed up, although they were not all there at the same time. I told Joe (the karaoke host) that I had won so he made an announcement that our table was celebrating, although he didn't say what. We had such a good time. Casey became an instant karaoke junkie and we discovered Salem can sing. Highlights of the night: Keith rocked "Bizarre Love Triangle", my sister did an awesome "Adia", I sang/screamed "Mother Mother", Danny did the ever popular "Wanted Dead or Alive", and Casey's first karaoke song ever was "I Put a Spell on You" by the Animals. I picked it out for him. Danny was the D.D. so I had quite a few drinks. I decided that since I will probably never see Joe again I might as well confess my crush on him. Right before we left I told him I've been waiting two and a half years for him to break up with his girlfriend. He said, "Why didn't you tell me before?!" I replied, "You knew. You just like to torture me." So we danced for the last song, which was sung by Danny. I gave him a big goodbye hug, threw some money in the tip jar, and we were off.
I slept like a rock last night. I was in such a great mood. I haven't had such restful sleep in a long time. I even had good dreams.
This whole thing really goes to show that you are guilty until proven innocent, not the other way around. It's not like I could go back to my job who fired me for the time I missed while in jail and tell them "I am innocent. Give me my job back." I am out lawyer fees, lost wages, and miscellaneous other expenses that came from this experience. As far as the job goes, I'm not so upset about the lost wages as I am that I was really happy at that job and will probably not find an equally good company to work for. However, the silver lining to this cloud is that I would not be motivated to go to school, move, and really take charge of my life had something not given me a huge push. When you've lost everything you're free to do anything, right? It will take me a long time to trust anyone again, but I have to remember that Mike is an individual and not everyone is as fucked in the head as he is. It may take a while, but I'll get my life back. I'll just look back on this as the most expensive breakup ever. No harm was done on my criminal record so all I'm really out is cash and my credit score. It happens to guys every day. Their wives or girlfriends take them for all they're worth and fuck up their lives. People get false rape or domestic violence charges pinned on them from vindictive exes, and they actually get convicted on them. It could have been a lot worse. I wonder if he were to be in jail himself if he would realize just how shitty it is to send someone there and rethink his choice of the law as a weapon, or if it would make no difference at all? I assume the latter. After all, his goal was to hurt me. In that, he was successful, but he did not destroy me. In fact I'm probably stronger than ever now.
Mike wasted a lot of people's time. I don't think the courts appreciate people who waste their time to make a point or get back at someone. You don't just file charges on someone to teach them a lesson. If you're claiming to be a victim of some kind, you should be traumatized or upset in some way. Mike should be ashamed of himself.
The case was dismissed without even being tried. I am off scot free. Woohoo!
I arrived at the City and County building just after 8:00am. Mike was there, just like I thought he would be. He looked like a drowned rat. He was wearing a dress shirt that was bigger than him and had his hair tied back. He looked very serious and self-righteous. I could tell he thought he was going to win. He probably figured I'd run out of the room crying and learn a hard life lesson. After all, what would I do without passive-aggressive vindictive exes to show me tough love?
I sat in the back of the courtroom. I saw him looking to the side so he could see me out of the corner of his eye. I shook my head at him. He responded by grinning the most evil grin I think I've ever seen. It was obvious the intention was for it to look evil. It wasn't a genuine grin. I think he was trying to intimidate me. It was actually really creepy, and my first thought was how lucky it was that he never did anything with his psych degree. I could easily see him grinning that "you have no idea what you're in for" grin at some poor, helpless patient as he injected them with horrible drugs as they were kicking and screaming.
My lawyer came and talked to me. He told me he had made one last attempt to get the prosecutor to drop the case but he would not do it. He also told me there was another case set for trial that was a priority over mine, so I might have to reset it for another month later, or even longer. When we went in front of the judge she set it for trial for 9:30 but told us if the other case was tried we would have to reschedule. We went out into the hallway and he gave me another quick rundown of what he had in store for the cross-examination, and also told me about the process of selecting jurors.
Erik and Danny showed up shortly after. Danny was surprised at what Mike looked like. My lawyer came back over and I told him about all the times someone would see Mike and I making out and think we were two girls. We cracked jokes on him for a little bit, and I got pretty fired up talking about what an evil, malicious little shit he is. I could see him getting visibly annoyed, probably because he was taking the whole thing so seriously and there we were sitting in the back giggling. I'm not sure if he could hear what we were saying or not. I guess my lawyer noticed too because he said, "I think Mike is intimidated by your little support group." I agreed and told him that since last time I was all angsty and had to leave the room crying, he was probably hoping for more of the same. I said, "He does hate me quite a bit." My lawyer replied, "No, he hates losing. His hate for you is secondary."
We waited for a little bit and just chit-chatted. My lawyer found out all the things both sides would be allowed to bring up and all that good stuff. He had agreed with the prosecutor that he could play the 911 tape if we could play Mike's video interview. Mike's interview is unbelievable. They asked him why he was there and he replied with, "What are the charges we want again?" He also told a ridiculous amount of lies and said things that conflicted with his original story. After all, he was pretty wasted when the cops came. I doubt he remembered much. He said he was afraid I was going to break his door down when in his original statement he had said there was no damage to the door and on the 911 tape I just knocked a couple of times. He also said he was afraid for his life, whereas when the cops came he said everything was fine and he didn't want me arrested. Probably his biggest lie though was: "They (the police) just asked me a few questions pertaining to my name, her name, things of that nature." when in reality they asked him a lot of questions about what had happened. "Do you feel threatened?" "Do you think we need to detain her?" Things of that nature. I'm sure he didn't want to admit that he had said he was totally fine at the time. It was amazing how calm he was for someone who was supposedly afraid for his life.
It turned out the guy who was set for trial had decided to take a plea bargain instead, so we were going to go ahead with the trial. My lawyer was back and forth from sitting with me to up talking to the prosecutor and various other people. He told me that some other lawyer was there from a law firm whose name I can't remember, simply to observe the trial. Apparently he had told that guy all about the case and that guy had said it would be positively stupid for the prosecution to go ahead with it. He also told me that after talking to the prosecutor he was starting to think I might have to testify. Mike's side of the story was that I had just shown up at the Hi Dive, and that we never talked on the phone beforehand. I was completely shocked, as I figured a self-righteous little prick like him would have some kind of moral opposition to perjury, but it seems once again I thought too highly of him. I wished Salem was there. It had never occurred to me that we might need him as a witness, but I also didn't think Mike was going to bold-faced lie like that. I guess I should have assumed it. He lied about everything else. Salem was standing right next to me that night when I was on the phone with Mike asking him if he wanted to come down to the Hi Dive, and he saw me go outside to meet him when I talked to him a second time and he said he was on his way.
It was getting close to time for the trial. My lawyer asked me to go outside with his laptop and watch the video interview one more time to see if we missed anything, and right as I was about to stand up the prosecutor walked up to him and whispered, "Dismissal. I'm just getting sick of it." I nearly jumped out of my seat but my lawyer told me to be cool for just a few minutes. Then I saw him hand the prosecutor a piece of paper. I could vaguely see what was on it, and I recognized it immediately. It was a copy of the email I had sent Mike before he decided to go down to the station and report me. It was what set him off. He actually went down to the station twice, not just once. The first time he said he wanted to file felony menacing charges and nothing came of that, so he went home, came back and filed domestic violence charges. I saw the prosecutor laughing a little bit as he read it. This is what it said:
Do not, I repeat, do not ever make any attempt to contact me ever again. You are blocked from my AIM. If you send me an email, a myspace message, or leave me a livejournal comment I will delete it without reading it. If you call me I will not answer, and if you leave a message I will delete it without listening to it. If you run into me somewhere even 20 years from now do not attempt to say hello. If we happen to be at the same place at the same time, here's how shit will go: You don't see me, I don't see you. Nothing, no unforseen circumstance will ever change this. There are no doors of possibility. No amount of time will make me come around. This is permanent and final. You are a terrible person and I can only look forward to the day that karma finds its way back to you. If you have any problem with this email or would like to discuss the matter further, that's tough shit. You are now dead to me.
Robin
Within less than a minute someone came and escorted Mike into the hallway to tell him that the case was dismissed. We still had to go in front of the judge again, and when the prosecutor said he wanted to dismiss the case the judge asked why. He replied with something along the lines of, "We had our doubts about this case anyway, and now some new evidence has come to light that changes everything." This is the part I remember verbatim: "On the one hand, we have the defendant on tape banging on the door in a disturbing manner, and on the other hand we have the victim seemingly undisturbed by the banging." He told the judge he didn't think the city had any way to prove the case, so she gave the ok. Dismissed.
Afterwards my lawyer relayed back to me the conversation to me that he, the prosecutor and the other lawyer had had just a few moments prior.
My lawyer: "Do you want to hear about this case we're about to go to trial on?"
Other lawyer: "Sure." (my lawyer tells him all about it)
Other lawyer to prosecutor: "Are you fucking crazy?"
Prosecutor: "Wait, just listen to this tape." (plays 911 call)
My lawyer to prosecutor: "Hey, why don't you let him try this case for you?"
Other lawyer: "Very funny. I wouldn't try this piece of shit loser."
He also had not shown the email to the prosecutor until then. That was going to be our surprise attack during the trial. The reason he had given him a copy after he had already decided to dismiss it was so he could feel better about doing so and also not get in trouble for it. Lawyers have to explain why they dismiss every case, so that email coming to light at the last minute was a damn good reason. He also told me about the conversation they had after he had read the email.
Prosecutor: "You mean to tell me it took him 22 hours to report this, she sent this email at 6:55pm, and he filed his report at ----"
My lawyer: "Yep. Just long enough to read the statutes on menacing and figure out exactly what he wanted to charge his ex-girlfriend with."
They both laughed about it.
After all was said and done my lawyer asked me if I was all paid up, and he said he thought I was. I told him I wasn't sure and he may want to check his records. I still owe him $150 but considering my current financial situation I figured I might not be able to pay him for a while and I didn't know how to tell him. However, he told me if I am paid up I got my money's worth and if not, not to worry about it. That was so nice of him.
Here Danny, Erik and I thought we were going to be there all day and by 10:30 we were at Starbuck's. We hung out there for a while and then I went shoe shopping and back to Danny's place. I had to call a bunch of people and tell them what happened. It was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Casey picked me up in the early evening and we went and got Salem from the light rail station and my sister from Lakewood. We all went to the Frontier for celebratory karaoke. About 9 people other than myself showed up, although they were not all there at the same time. I told Joe (the karaoke host) that I had won so he made an announcement that our table was celebrating, although he didn't say what. We had such a good time. Casey became an instant karaoke junkie and we discovered Salem can sing. Highlights of the night: Keith rocked "Bizarre Love Triangle", my sister did an awesome "Adia", I sang/screamed "Mother Mother", Danny did the ever popular "Wanted Dead or Alive", and Casey's first karaoke song ever was "I Put a Spell on You" by the Animals. I picked it out for him. Danny was the D.D. so I had quite a few drinks. I decided that since I will probably never see Joe again I might as well confess my crush on him. Right before we left I told him I've been waiting two and a half years for him to break up with his girlfriend. He said, "Why didn't you tell me before?!" I replied, "You knew. You just like to torture me." So we danced for the last song, which was sung by Danny. I gave him a big goodbye hug, threw some money in the tip jar, and we were off.
I slept like a rock last night. I was in such a great mood. I haven't had such restful sleep in a long time. I even had good dreams.
This whole thing really goes to show that you are guilty until proven innocent, not the other way around. It's not like I could go back to my job who fired me for the time I missed while in jail and tell them "I am innocent. Give me my job back." I am out lawyer fees, lost wages, and miscellaneous other expenses that came from this experience. As far as the job goes, I'm not so upset about the lost wages as I am that I was really happy at that job and will probably not find an equally good company to work for. However, the silver lining to this cloud is that I would not be motivated to go to school, move, and really take charge of my life had something not given me a huge push. When you've lost everything you're free to do anything, right? It will take me a long time to trust anyone again, but I have to remember that Mike is an individual and not everyone is as fucked in the head as he is. It may take a while, but I'll get my life back. I'll just look back on this as the most expensive breakup ever. No harm was done on my criminal record so all I'm really out is cash and my credit score. It happens to guys every day. Their wives or girlfriends take them for all they're worth and fuck up their lives. People get false rape or domestic violence charges pinned on them from vindictive exes, and they actually get convicted on them. It could have been a lot worse. I wonder if he were to be in jail himself if he would realize just how shitty it is to send someone there and rethink his choice of the law as a weapon, or if it would make no difference at all? I assume the latter. After all, his goal was to hurt me. In that, he was successful, but he did not destroy me. In fact I'm probably stronger than ever now.
Mike wasted a lot of people's time. I don't think the courts appreciate people who waste their time to make a point or get back at someone. You don't just file charges on someone to teach them a lesson. If you're claiming to be a victim of some kind, you should be traumatized or upset in some way. Mike should be ashamed of himself.