"Accuse the accuser; typical pee narc tactic!"

If anyone other than my brother knows from whence the above quotation is derived, I will eat my stapler. It is a black Corporate Express stapler, rather than a red Swing Line stapler, which obviously anyone would prefer. Corporate Express is a funny name for an office supply company though, so it gets some points there.

This has been a pretty boring week. I've gone to Video Remand court every morning, then come back to the office and vetted files. These always offer some amusement --- here a kid walks into the courthouse carrying $400 worth of drugs, there a police officer detains someone for no reason other than that he looks shady --- but mostly they're tedious.

Sometimes I read about the other other half. Or the first half, I suppose. They must be busy up there in the clouds: their blog output is declining. I worry for them.

Once I drew a map of my Toronto neighbourhood using a ruler and Google Maps as a guide, then photocopied it and filled in the street names. I didn't docket a lot of hours that day, but I had a great 8 1/2" x 11" reference for my weekend of frenzied house hunting.

Tomorrow I might get to do some summary guilty pleas. I did this last Friday. It was interesting to see the accused in person rather than on a video screen (they're the same but better dressed), to have an actual impact on the administration of justice rather than just endorsing dates and telling defence lawyers that their disclosure is not ready, and to be in front of an honest to god judge rather than a justice of the peace. I recommended a sentence of one day with time served for a nineteen-year-old girl incarcerated for marijhuana possession. She had been in jail for 22 days for possession of 0.2 grams -- hardly enough to get your cat stoned, should you be so inclined. She got the time, however, because she had been charged with trafficking in another province and was in violation of a condition of her probation not to leave that province. (She was also carrying a cell phone, in violation of another condition, but as the judge pointed out, every nineteen year-old in the country has a cell phone.) I was there when she went in the clink, too: it was the Saturday before Father's Day, and she cried when she found out she wouldn't be getting out. I felt bad for her. I guess that's something I'll have to get over if I want to do something like this for a living.

Did I mention she left her kid in the other province?

As I was leaving the courthouse she was outside talking to a friend. (In person, not by phone.) It was awkward walking past her, acting like I hadn't just read her offence to the court and (sort of but not really) held her fate in my hands. She didn't look thrilled to see me either. Last I saw her she was heading downtown.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get to give somebody a real punishment. Maybe something with hard time!