As I was leaving
the courtroom of Tice, Groff began following me into the courtroom next door.
Like a bolt of lightning, I understood I was really screwed this time. Groff
was going to represent me whether I liked it or not. After all, he had cooked
up the stew with the judge and they were going to make me eat it.
When Groff first
visited me in jail, the cops had towed and impounded my car and I had
him retrieve it. I wanted him to park it somewhere in his office parking
lot until I got out of jail. The way the system works, I would have had to pay
the bill whether I was found guilty or not. That is another little screw the
bureaucrats figured out. He claimed he couldn't do that. I then got with the
drug dealer and he said I could park it at his place. We drew a map for Groff
and he assured me he could get it to the designated place.
He bailed my car
out of impoundment and took it to the designated place. I told him to remove
about three thousand in cash and checks and keep it in the office.
It may be important
to note we had already agreed on a price for his services and I forbade him to
go beyond that. I told him I didn't want my kid to starve and have to live in
the street that winter even if I to go to jail. As we all know, if a lawyer
smells money, his main objective is to get it. That was Groff's plan.
Now, as I walked
into court, I had a lawyer who is not interested in my concerns, but his. Groff
knew I was screwed. I couldn't tell him to get lost because he was the only one
who knew where my car was and he had every cent I owned. I couldn't even get
out of town without him.
When I asked him to
take my car to the new place, somewhere in my head I always had the feeling he
screwed it up. My intuition proved right.
The judge was a woman.
I learned of her reputation of being a man hater and trying to make a name of
being a tough judge. I am not sure of
the name, but the paperwork says it was Shawn Pahlke. (If I have the
wrong names on these articles, please have these judges contact me and I will
correct anything and give them, or anybody else who I have discussed all the
space they need to prove me wrong and I will apologize. That is more than they
gave me.)
Groff was there to
insure that I didn't ask for a trial. Although he had said he couldn't do
better than a guilty plea, it had been changed to "no contest." And,
of course, that meant to me that I could not muster the means to insist on
justice, not that I was guilty. Unfortunately, "no contest" means the
same as guilty, which it should not. It really means the system has the power
to put you in an unfair situation and stick it to you. This passes for justice
these days.
I looked at Pahlke
in astonishment. There I was, a veteran who had volunteer to risk his life for
the constitution and country having the constitution ignored by someone who had
not even served the country but has been served by it. She had insulted my son
and the children I was hoping restore dignity for. She had no idea of the
consequences that this was to bring. But there she was, arrogant and ignorant
and too stupid to realize it. She had punished the innocent and protected the
guilty.
Something changed
in me there. Pahlke had accomplished the opposite of what she thought. I
understood that this country was really a government by the bureaucrats and for
the bureaucrats. There was nothing there that anyone should be proud of. It was
at war with me.