Juvenile Crimes - Chapter 31

Building Trust : Destroying Faith

Coos Bay, Oregon, late May 1996 continued…

By the end of the week following the mass murder, I was being sought out by the secretaries to help them deal with the Chloe situation. Not just Sandy, but staff members who had been cold-shouldering me for months. I had heard that Chloe was a grind to work with, but I had no idea how bad it was getting. Even though she was a rookie attorney, she had been throwing her status around like she had been the office boss for years. They all told me the same basic things – that she was rude, demanding, and generally looked down upon them and they felt it. To me, she was always acting like sunshine. I didn’t buy it, but I wrote it off as her maybe still having an interest in me and she was putting on her best face.

A couple of them also said they thought her judgement really sucked in terms of what cases she pursued, and the extreme punishments she sometimes sought. One example that came up right away was her prosecution of a guy for stealing a pack of cigarettes. It was the lowest offence misdemeanor, Class C. She refused to offer him a plea deal to give it “violation” treatment, which would have resulted in a $500 fine. Instead, Chloe had to play hard ass. Her best plea offer included pleading guilty to the “C” misdemeanor with two days jail.  Of course that was rejected, so she insisted on taking it to a jury. Keep in mind how overworked everybody constantly was and how much unnecessary time and expense (on the County) even a six-person jury trial was. Thousands of dollars of wasted time and energy over a pack of smokes…fucking ridiculous.   

“The defendant had a long history of shoplifting,” came Chloe’s response when I confronted her about the case. “He needed to be taught a lesson.”

“I think a $500 fine is sufficient lesson for lifting a five-dollar pack of smokes,” I informed her with a touch of humor in my voice to not be threatening. “That would not have cost the County any extra time or resources, or waste dozens of jurors their entire damn day.”

“I didn’t think that was enough,” Chloe tried defending herself. “He needs the threat of jail to keep him from doing this over and over again.”

“It’s already baked into the fine - if he didn’t pay the fine, he would be thrown in jail for contempt of Court,” I came back with, a bit more serious in tone. “You need to consider the use of Judicial Resources, especially in a such a minor case. I guarantee you the Judge thought you’re a fucking idiot, and he will hold it against you down the road.”

“I don’t think so,” Chloe said plainly. “He seems to like me in Court most days.”

“Okay,” I said. “I assume you won that one, right?”

“Of course! The jury was only out for a half-hour, too!” she said proudly.

“Yeah, ‘cause they couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of there. You’re lucky they didn’t go the other way just to spite you.”

“A jury would never do that!” she exclaimed.

“Oh yeah? So, what happened on the O.J. case then?” I pressed. It hung in the air for a second before she nodded acknowledgement of my point. “Okay, so what did your smoke thief get for a sentence?” I asked.

“Six-months bench probation…and a $500 fine,” she responded more sheepishly.

“You see my point then, right?” I asked. Chloe nodded and half-rolled her eyes in submission.

Memorial Weekend brought nice weather and the first office cookout invitation for the year. Most of the Office staff were there, with their spouses or significant others. It was an opportunity to blow off steam after the mass murder ordeal. That meant a fully stocked ice tub of various beers and wine coolers. I again brought my own near-beers – I didn’t want to deal with any questions, and I still wasn’t comfortable drinking around these folks. Lot’s of cops were on hand, too, which added to my cautiousness.

I felt my paranoia about drinking around some of these folks was totally justified. The first time one of my peers asked me out for a beer was when Greg hit me up to change jobs from juvenile to adult prosecutor after the Office blow-up over the Freddy Nelson case. I told you how all that worked out.

A few weeks later, Peter surprised me one night when he had been working late (I was always working late) asking if I’d like to go have a beer with him. Under normal circumstances, I would have jumped at the opportunity to get to know each other more in a relaxed setting. It was standard procedure back in North Dakota, almost expected. These weren’t normal times or circumstances, however, so I was stunned but didn’t show it. Only four months before, I had vowed my sobriety to him in The Interview. Was this a test? I wasn’t sure, and besides the fact that I was completely alcohol-free at the time, it felt like a potential set-up. It just felt like a strange offer out-of-nowhere, especially coming from Peter. It could be an easy way to dismiss me (still on probationary status at the time) if I failed that test by simply having that beer with Peter. I politely declined, honestly claiming a need to get home to take care of my cat and eat dinner before getting back to work.

Now, at the Memorial Weekend soiree, the booze was flowing, and the bullshit followed close behind. Burgers, brats, and BBQ’d oysters fresh out of the water served for the main course, with lots of well-meaning side dishes that were mostly destined for leftovers or the trash. The typical pot-luck picnic affair, with volleyball and lawn darts to follow…

I bring this up because it was the first time I was fully engaged by many people I had already been working with for half the year, now with spouses included. Instead of being ignored and cold-shouldered, I was actively being sought out and then caught up in long conversations about where I was from, how I ended up in Coos Bay, what I thought about being a prosecutor, and on and on. They were all awake to me now and more curious. Finally. But it gave me the strange feeling of being treated like the new guy and a veteran at the same time.

Peter, for his part, told me once again how great a job he heard I was doing. “Keep it up and that promotion is coming when you hit the one-year mark,” Peter assured me for probably the thirtieth time by this point.

The week following brought the necessity of more mentoring by me of Chloe. This time it was the theft of a fucking pack of chewing gum that she wanted to take to trial. After telling her again how stupid it was to waste the County’s resources on such a low-value crime, I just pushed my personal influence.

“If you take this fucking dog to trial, you are going to bring ridicule and scorn upon yourself, for sure, and likely the entire Office,” I said calmly and rationally. “Not just from the Judge, but from the entire fucking Courthouse. And the Public, if it ever got to the news somehow.”