Thursday, June 22, 2006

The Unfailing Stupidity of the Criminal Mind

Working in the prosecutor's office, I come into contact with a vast amount of criminal cases. And, as you can imagine, criminals aren't generally the most intellectually proficient class of citizens out there. And with the amount of criminal behavior I end up reading about, my job can be pretty entertaining at times. After making a charging decision, I occasionally end up meeting these people in court for their hearings and speaking with them about the State's offer. So it's like "Sir, if you'd like to plead to this charge, we'll dismiss the lower count, recommend 20 days in jail, a $350 fine, and present you with a Darwin award for your astonishingly moronic exploits. Thanks for playing, I'm sure I'll see you again next week."

A few examples of the mastermind element:

A cop pulls a woman over for drunk driving. As he's going back to his squad car to get the breathalyzer, the woman's friend drives by, also plastered, and sees her friend stopped by the cop. So, in a brazen display of mental deficiency, she pulls her vehicle over, gets out and runs toward the officer. She then begins to harass the officer, asking him why in the hell he pulled over her friend. Naturally, the officer arrests the second woman for drunk driving and obstructing a police officer.

The police found a man alleged to be having sex with an underaged woman. The police stop him, ask him his name, and he tells them "Michael Jordan." Now, of all the false identification choices you can give, why go with an internationally known superstar athlete? The police report was great because it read something like "After looking the suspect over, the officer suspected that this man was, in fact, not Michael Jordan." And at court, it was all I could do to restrain myself from going over to the defense table and asking him for his autograph.

An officer pulls over a car full of three young guys. They are all drunk, and they have marijuana in the vehicle. The cop walks up and approaches the driver, who rolls down his window. At this time, the other two passengers attempt to duck down to escape the officer's view. I can just imagine how this plays out: the officer is standing at the window, shining his flashlight at the two idiots who are ducking down out of view, and he says "Uh...excuse me....you fellas do know I can see you, right?"

This one is less funny, but equally bizarre to me. A couple has been married for twenty years. One day they arrive home from a dinner, and the husband is going to head upstairs. He says he's going upstairs, and his wife responds with something like "Copy?" At this point, the husband becomes enraged, and rushes back down. A knock-down, drag-out, marriage-ending fight ensues. So I get to dictate the domestic disorderly conduct complaint. "Officers responded to a domestic disturbance between a husband and wife, where a boisterous and violent disagreement broke out after the wife uttered the unforgiveable curse of "Copy?" Now, I'm told this isn't uncommon with domestics, and plenty more must have been simmering under the surface. Thankfully I only got to see the straw that blew the entire marriage all to hell.

And, lastly, there was a case in Racine where a woman had a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend. The guy then attempted to violate the order by seeing her again, and tried to break into her house. So he smashed his arm through her window and tried to climb in. However, he cut his arm badly on the broken glass, so he decided not to continue climbing through. At that point he attempted to flee. But his arm was cut so badly that he bled to death on the way home. That just goes to show you - violating a restraining order might just get your stupid ass killed.

I'll keep you updated as the contenders roll in.

2 comments:

Vice said...

I know what you mean. Once I went over to a guy's house to watch a football game, and he had a bunch of friends there I didn't know. They had taken all the good spots on the couch. So about a half hour later, when the guy found the decapitated bodies of three of his friends lying in his closet, he looked at me like it was my fault. As if. They're the ones that chose to sit on the couch.

Johnny Utah said...

Yeah, some of my clients should be board-certified retards for the things they say and do...i.e. "I spun donuts in the football field because my taxpayer dollars paid for that field and I have a right to be on it."