In Game: vs. VCU

[raptorcat]

If readers still want me to stay on as the thread-starter for this season, I plan to write a series of humorous stories that occurred in court during my twenty years on the bench, along with a few stories passed on to me by former colleagues. The first: The Mule and the DWI.

As I look back on my travels across NC as a Superior Court judge (what most states would describe as a circuit judge), I did a little bit of everything, from presiding over death penalty cases to misdemeanor appeals of minor traffic infractions to every type of civil dispute imaginable, except for, thankfully, family law matters. I don't know why, but in compiling a mental list of weird and funny things that happened in court, an inordinate number originated in Stokes County, a large but very rural county abutting the Virginia border. I took to calling it the Bermuda Triangle of the Piedmont because the truly bizarre regularly became commonplace. (If you ever want to visit Stokes County vicariously, just watch some episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. In fact, the county is next door to Griffith's home county of Surry, and is a closer approximation of the comedy world he created than his home county ever was.)

This occurred to colleagues, too. Judge Lindsay Davis (a 1968 Davidson grad, BTW) told me about one that happened to him.

A man was on trial for a DWI; he had lost his case in District Court and, as was his right, he appealed it to Superior Court for a jury trial of his peers. The facts were that he, along with members of his extended family, lived on a remote but public road in the county. Because he had been convicted of previous DWIs, he didn't have a driver's license and when he wanted to visit his family, he just hitched his mule to a wagon and drove it down the road. On a particular Saturday, he attended a party at a cousin's house less than a mile down the road from his property. He got to drinkin' and when it was time to leave, his cousin and some friends helped him get up on his wagon and pointed the mule in the direction of home.

As the mule plodded home, the man passed out. He didn't fall out of the wagon but he slumped over badly and dropped the reins. A highway patrolman was traveling in the opposite direction and noticed him crumpled on the wagon seat, mouth open and snoring. He turned his patrol car around and got behind the wagon. The mule was plodding along at a slow pace and the trooper grabbed the mule's bridle, got the wagon stopped, and awakened the defendant, albeit with some difficulty. A few quick field sobriety tests confirmed the trooper's suspicion: the man was gassed, as Barney Fife would say.

His sole defense at trial was that he wasn't guilty because the DWI statute required him to be in control of some conveyance; he wasn't "driving" the mule because he'd dropped the reigns and the mule was in control of the wagon. The mule knew exactly where he was going -- back to the barn, on a route it had taken many times before.

At the close of the evidence, the defense attorney moved to dismiss the case because an essential element -- the driving -- was missing, but Judge Davis denied the motion and the outcome was placed in the jury's hands. I wish I had a better ending to this story, but the jury convicted him. That's another thing about Stokes County: the juries always convict, even when it would have been a much funnier story to tell friends and families if they had let him off.

Next time: A defendant tells me I'm fat.

Until then, GO CATS!

[raptorcat]

A postscript to this story: I ran into Judge Lindsay Davis this afternoon and told him I had borrowed his story. He gave me another detail: at the beginning of the trial, and outside the jury's presence, he was informed of the intended legal defense. He had the attorneys approach the bench and asked the defense attorney if she knew where mules came from. She said she knew it was half-horse, half-donkey. Judge Davis then asked rhetorically, "Well, doesn't that make your argument half-assed?"

[MrMac]

Great story! I hope our defense fares better than that defendant. Go Cats! Drive the Rams.

[JCDC]

A similar story is told about one of my great uncles, except that he would get the mules started and then crawl back to lie down in the back of the wagon. I now suspect this is a story passed around more than a few times in the South.

[Waitress]

Sounds like a character in a Bob McKeller story.

[catseye]

Great start to today's thread.

[seamac77]

CSI : Danbury !

[85Wildcatsky]

Skogman in a boot. Bummer.

[MrMac]

Logan will need to step up. I guess David never recovered (but he's sure played well in a couple of these last games).

[MrMac]

Conner is stepping up, for sure. All five Cat points. 3-5

[WildCock]

Spidey knocks off Dayton.

[bagelcat]

Brizzi does the hard work to get to the hole but misses the layup.

[MrMac]

Bailey playing like a Cat possesed.

[MrMac]

Dunk fest. Cats lead.

[bagelcat]

The block we've been waiting for!!!!