My appearance date was set two months out, so I would be expected to appear and, of course, plead “not guilty” on the appointed date in May. I counted the days, made sure I knew where to go (remember I had lived in Tucson for less than a year), checked on everything I could find about DUI on the web, asked everybody I knew about what to expect, and scheduled a vacation day for that date. The one thing I didn’t do was get an attorney.
As the date approached I got more and more nervous about what was going to happen to me and less and less comfortable with my decision not to enlist the help of a capable attorney. My decision was predicated by the fact that I didn’t have even close to enough money to pay for one. So, I was hoping at the very least, I would get a public defender assigned to my case. I watched enough TV to know how this process worked, not having any direct experience with the criminal justice system.
On the appointed date, I headed down into the bowels of the city of Tucson, found the Municipal Court Complex and waited outside the door for the building to open with a handful of other unhappy looking people. I was told I would find my docket number, assigned courtroom and judge on a bulletin board just inside the door. I found the board with a list of close to 75 people, just inside the door on the left. I crowded to the front, got the information and wrote it down on the legal pad I had lifted from work.
Okay, have 2 hours to kill before court is in session. Judge William McCoy. Court Room number 575. “I wonder if he’s the ‘real McCoy,’” I thought, trying to make light of my current situation.
I headed for the court building and sat in the courtyard wondering how I had landed myself in the dregs of society. You know what I mean, there is a certain segment of the group milling about the courtyard that is familiar with the system, and then there is that other small group that looks, worried, upset, lost and totally out of place. I was definitely in the latter. I read for a while, and then watch the people. I’m intrigued by a girl standing on the corner of the courtyard yelling up three stories to some guy who is leaning out the window of the detention center.
“They’re not letting me out, Maria,” he screams down onto the street.
“What am I supposed to do?” Maria says. She looks around to see who is watching. I avert my eyes to the sidewalk. “I don’t have enough money to get bail. I don’t know what to do.”
“You have to get me outta here,” he pleads. I’m surprised that they are not speaking in Spanish, as most of the others in courtyard. “Please get me outta here. Go talk to (I can’t make out the name.) She’ll help you.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she repeats. “Miguel, what I’m supposed to do.”
Almost instantly he turns ugly. “Get the fuck outta of here,” he screams, “Useless fucking bitch! Just get the fuck outta of here!” he pauses for effect. “Puta! What the fuck good are you?” and he disappears into the building. She looks around the courtyard again to see who might be watching. The entire courtyard is watching.
She screams up, “Miguel!” No one comes to the window. The windows are slender, tall, and tinted very dark, with the bottom foot or so, folding out. He had to stick his head out the window to talk to Maria, but he doesn’t reemerge.
I immediately feel sorry for her, but know there is nothing I can or will do to help. She waits a few minutes then walks out of the courtyard and down the street. I think she’s probably more worried about him getting out, and I wonder just how much she did to facilitate his release. She almost seemed to skip down the street when she was leaving. We, the dregs of society, look at each other for a moment and then go on with what we were doing, reading the paper, reading a book, or smoking a cigarette, waiting for our appointed hour to arrive.
“Can I bum a smoke?” A horrible foul smell reaches my nostrils. I look up to see a guy in a tattered brown blazer standing very near to me, but not in front of me, so I didn’t see him approach. He’s wearing a straw cowboy hat. There’s a pretty large hole in the crown. His front teeth, bottom and top, are missing. He’s not carrying anything, but is obviously a member of the homeless society. There are a lot of them in Tucson because it’s warm most of the year. I don’t want to give him a smoke. I want him to get a job. I realize that’s not realistic. I tell him instead it’s my last one.
He sees the pack in my shirt pocket, so he doesn’t believe me.
“Come on man, I need a smoke.”
I reach in my pocket and pull out the pack intending to give him one. He snatches the pack out of my hands before I have a chance to react, and is sprinting out of the courtyard at a pretty good clip. I can imagine the satisfaction on his face. It pisses me off, but there is nothing I can do about it. I’m not chasing some homeless person through the streets of downtown Tucson for a half-empty pack of cigarettes. I notice how I think it’s half-empty instead of half-full.
It’s now 9:30 and I’m to be in the courtroom by 10:00. I start for the door and the metal detectors, and I notice several others are moving in the same direction. Someone else presses my floor on the elevator buttons, and I watch the numbers. We stop on every floor. When 5 is highlighted I get out. Four others get off on this floor as well. I’m struck by how much this reminds me of a college classroom building. I find 575 and go inside. There are two guys in suits, one girl in a yellow pantsuit, and a uniformed person, walking around the front of the room, behind the railing and in front of the bench. The suits, all three of them, are stacking files, pulling stuff out of briefcases, preparing.
I take a seat in the middle row close to the aisle. The room is starting to fill up. I sit there staring at the suits, my hands clasped to the paperback book I brought. I want a cigarette, but I know I don’t have them anymore and I can’t smoke in here anyway. One of the attorneys from the Tucson Prosecutor’s Office starts calling off names. I’m pretty sure I heard my name. Pretty sure, so I listen up.
“Those people I just called, please come down to the front row and take a seat,” he says.
Yellow pantsuit smiles at us as we shuffle into the front row. There are six of us, four guys and two girls. We range in age from, say, 24ish to 50ish, I’m guessing.
The attorney reads the names again. Now I’m sure I’m in the right place. I heard my name clearly. One of us is missing. His name is called twice, then the file returned to the desk stack, the remaining manila folders, he holds between his hands, and looks directly at us.
“You all tested below the legal limit,” he says, “charges are being dropped. You are all free to go.”
We look at each other in relief and disbelief, and then he adds, “You will have no arrest or arraignment record.”
The bunch of us gets up almost at the same instant, file out of the bench, and head out the door of courtroom. I think we’re all thinking we better get out of here quick before they change their minds. No one speaks to anyone as we wait for the elevator. Within a few minutes I’m back out in the courtyard thinking I should go look for that vagrant, and see if he has an extra smoke.
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