Well….Sophia had her day in court, with Steph and me by her side. I guess they call it “day in court” for a reason because man was it a long day. We were there early of course but the judge didn’t come out till 10:30. Then, in no particular order, they called attendance across the docket of roughly 20 cases. Once they finally got underway, it was a monotonous and repetitive process of reading the defendants their rights and counts by which they were charged. Across the board, everyone was there to plead guilty to a pre-negotiated sentence. The judge was rather perfunctory.
Charges ran the gamut from drugs to mail theft, card fraud to sex crimes. Some folks were brought out in cuffs and prison attire. Others, who weren’t already in custody, were immediately remanded to the Dept. of Corrections. But perhaps the most interesting drama was the Assault and Battery case involving a 24 year old black lesbian named Precious. She literally went ape-shit on her white, 18 yr old girlfriend in a Home Depot parking lot. We’re talking she bit her face, strangled her and somehow used her long-ass fingernails to puncture a hole underneath her lovers tongue. The pictures made everyone in the courtroom gasp.
Anyway, after all was said and done, Sophia never even stood up before the judge. Our lawyer advised that we file for a continuance given her lack of tenure and stability out in Austin. So while anti-climatic in terms of legal closure, all three of us came away thinking it was probably for the best. Obviously Sophia’s crime pales in comparison to what we saw. And by sitting front and center all day, perhaps that was punishment and lesson enough. There’s even a glimmer of hope that our lawyer can convince the DA to lower her sentence to a misdemeanor. If not, Sophia will be back again soon enough and we will have the pleasure of another day in court.