X's and O's from the gallery

A colleague had a brief due by 5:00, so I agreed to cover prelims. Prelims here are not the contested hour-long (or four-hour-long, depending on the attorney) adversarial mini-trials of my home state, but something more like initial in-custody appearances for felony defendants. I hacked around with the majority of the clients, then a decent local private attorney played through. His client was in the high-security color of jail coveralls / jumpsuit, and was charged with some seriously assaultive gunplay. Dude had a bad similar prior, too.

When it was time for setting bond, a woman in the bleachers stood up and asked to speak. She was the defendant's mom. She explained to the judge that her son was never ever involved with violence or guns, and that he would never have got that prior conviction if the family had just hired him a real lawyer instead of leaving him with a public defender.

Hey, if I was in his shoes, I'd want my mom to stand by me too. However, I must have been shuffling my files a bit too emphatically, because the in-court deputy came up to me during the spiel to say in my ear, "I'm sure she's not talking about you public defenders."