| Tuesday, January 24, 2006 |
| Ten minutes to Wapner . . . |
[Insert People's Court Music here. If typed out it looks like: DA! D'DUM! DUM!]
I've always been fascinated by the law; before my preaching desires kicked in, I always thought I would be a lawyer. It seemed such a cool profession, on LA Law and in the movies [My Cousin Vinnie, anyone?], why wouldn't I want to be a lawyer?
I became a friend with Kevin while on staff at Christ's Church. Kevin is a defense lawyer up in Lebanon who sometimes tries appeals cases before the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. He always offered to let me watch and we finally made it happen this afternoon.
First off, no one tried on a bloody glove and there was no opportunity for me to yell, "No Justice, No Peace!" After getting over that disappointment, it was an interesting time. The room in the Courthouse was gorgeous, cherry wood everywhere with a Gold Eagle carved above the judges' bench. There are three judges that cases are brought before, and lawyers. At this point in the appeals process, it's all about arguments over the laws themselves.
As a defense lawyer Kevin is forced to represent scum, but he'll only argue what he believes in. Today it was an argument concerning the way a judge sentenced a drug dealer. There was no denying the guilt of the defendent, but the judge took some leeway in how he came up with the sentence; he used hearsay evidence to come up with the sentence. Kevin argued to the appeals court that it was a violation of the sixth amendment [still not sure what women voting had to do with this]. The judges get a month or so to come up with a decision but, despite already winning one of his points, you could tell that his argument wasn't going to fly.
After listening to about an hour of legaleze, I went away with one thing on my mind:
I'm glad I didn't become a lawyer.
Sure it's exciting when you're before a judge, but with all the research you have to do just to get in court, it's like being stuck in term-paper hell. You research rulings and cases to come up with arguments so you can go back and research some more. That is unless you're an ambulance chaser and then . . . well, Duebber can fill in the blanks.
Mad props to all you hard-working law school grads, but I'll stick with the preaching gig, thank you very much. No one objects to my sermons . . . well, at least not while I'm giving them.
Can't you hear Doug Llewellyn wrapping up this post? He says something like this:
"This is Doug Llewellyn reminding you that when you're too lazy to actually go to law school, you have little ambition and think you can skate through life by going to Bible College and becoming a minister, don't take the law into your own hands- go to court . . . for an afternoon."
[Insert ending People's Court theme here: DA! D'DUM! DUM! followed by the wicked drum solo.] |
yet another musing of steve-o @ 9:20:00 PM  |
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