My day in court

I spent all day Monday at our friendly county courthouse. It was the arraignment date for one of the rotten bastards-in this case, a rotten b&%*h since it's a female, who was involved in the robbery at my house in December. I had to drive to the big city, find parking, and figure out the maze that is the county building to find the correct department. Finally, in the bowels of a 4 story building (please don't laugh-that's considered a skyscraper around here!), I waited in courtroom no. 7 for my particular pondslime lady to be arraigned. After waiting through 10 other arraignments her name was finally called and I could put a face with the name.

There's nothing exceptional about her-she wouldn't stand out in a typical crowd of 30 something lower middle class women; she just looks average. I did get some serious satisfaction in seeing her sporting an orange jumpsuit and chains; and her demeanor was a combination of resignation and just a hint of fear. Unfortunately, after spending all day at the courthouse, they didn't arraign her. Her attorney wasn't there and the one that showed up for her asked the court to give her another arraignment date. Damn-that means I'll be spending next Monday at the courthouse again.

The attorney for the D.A. that I spoke to told me that there are several charges against her including selling stolen property (that would be my stolen property) and a felony charge for something else. He thinks she'll plead either no contest or guilty and the most she will probably get is a year in the county jail with time served. That means she'll probably be back on the street in just a few months time.

this has been very frustrating for me. I can't get any answers out of the sheriffs department about when I can get my stuff back that they're holding for evidence. The victims assistance people tell me to talk to the sheriffs department; the sheriff's department says it's up to the district attorney's office. The district attorney's office says to talk to the evidence officer with the sheriff's office, and he hasn't returned any calls. And everybody has tried to discourage me from attending the arraignments and court dates, and they tell me that making a victims statement is unneccessary since this person has several charges against her and she's getting the maximum sentence anyway.

The only positive note in this mess is that the detective handling this case still seems to believe that the one item I really want returned-a family heirloom that has little value on the street and a great deal of value to me and my family-may still surface. I don't know why he thinks that but he does. I hope he's right, but as time has passed I've resigned myself to the loss.