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And what will you do with your life?
Some people on my flist will have the answer to the second question down. I think I've finally found the answer for myself.
Tonight was my usual Thursday night - come home from school as quickly as possible, goof off as much as possible (although I cleaned a bit and did some useful things, like more taxes) and then go to trial practice. There's a lot less practice and lot more listening to the professor talk, but that's all right. Tonight class was at the courthouse, which is a couple of blocks over from the law school, so I parked my car at the garage and walked. It was still light out, and it wasn't that chilly, and I made it in good time. The lady who'd left directions on my phone left improper directions, so I huddled on the pavement with some other students at the west entrance of the courthouse (she'd given us the wrong street address but the right entrance) and then one of the guards let us in.
At first it was mostly a lecture on DNA evidence, ballistics, and some seriously amazing courtroom technology.
And then he trotted out evidence from actual cases. Tonight I saw some things I've never seen before - like what a bullet wound looks like in the back of a man's head, and a dead girl's skull where it was smashed in by her murderer, and a mattress soaked with blood where a man stabbed a woman to death while she lay asleep (and his girlfriend flipped the mattress over and slept in that bed the next night). I listened to a drunken nineteen year old boy tell a police officer that because he was angry he grabbed a high-powered rifle, drove off to some random restaurant, and shot a girl through the head. It wasn't a random shot, though - he aimed, used the scope, waited, and killed her. He even bragged about what an awesome shot he was with the scope. One of the girls in class told us that she'd interviewed him the next day for pre-trial release and that he was absolutely in tears. And then she quit whatever job it was that required her to come face-to-face with a killer like that.
On the drive home I was quietly horrified. The professor and his little techie assistant were pretty blasé about what they showed us - crime scene photos, photos of bodies and blood and human cruelty, and I wondered if my mother wasn't right after all, that I'm not really cut out to be a criminal prosecutor. My first instinct was to call someone - maybe Marty, maybe Daniel - and have a quiet conversation, induce some laughter, because I'll never forget what I saw, and I know that if I pick the route I've held onto for so long I'll see much more. I wondered why anyone would want to do that to themselves, have to see that every day. Our professor said that there are thirty capital murder cases pending in this county alone, and that the homicide squad calls him to the scene of the crime when they find it. And then I realized that, if I put myself through what my teacher puts himself through every day, I'll be doing my part to bring some relief, some justice. The law is reactionary - lawyers aren't out on the streets stopping stupid kids from robbing stores; the police come to us when it's already too late for the victims. As in torts, where money is given in damages, conviction is little relief to the victim or the victim's family, but it's all we've got.
Whatever momentary fear I might have had, whatever spineless, PR-induced indecision might have come over me, whether or not I work for the Innocence Project this summer (and believe you me, it's a mighty good cause), I'm going to become a prosecutor, because someone has to face down the human horror and do something about it.
I'm okay now.
Some people on my flist will have the answer to the second question down. I think I've finally found the answer for myself.
Tonight was my usual Thursday night - come home from school as quickly as possible, goof off as much as possible (although I cleaned a bit and did some useful things, like more taxes) and then go to trial practice. There's a lot less practice and lot more listening to the professor talk, but that's all right. Tonight class was at the courthouse, which is a couple of blocks over from the law school, so I parked my car at the garage and walked. It was still light out, and it wasn't that chilly, and I made it in good time. The lady who'd left directions on my phone left improper directions, so I huddled on the pavement with some other students at the west entrance of the courthouse (she'd given us the wrong street address but the right entrance) and then one of the guards let us in.
At first it was mostly a lecture on DNA evidence, ballistics, and some seriously amazing courtroom technology.
And then he trotted out evidence from actual cases. Tonight I saw some things I've never seen before - like what a bullet wound looks like in the back of a man's head, and a dead girl's skull where it was smashed in by her murderer, and a mattress soaked with blood where a man stabbed a woman to death while she lay asleep (and his girlfriend flipped the mattress over and slept in that bed the next night). I listened to a drunken nineteen year old boy tell a police officer that because he was angry he grabbed a high-powered rifle, drove off to some random restaurant, and shot a girl through the head. It wasn't a random shot, though - he aimed, used the scope, waited, and killed her. He even bragged about what an awesome shot he was with the scope. One of the girls in class told us that she'd interviewed him the next day for pre-trial release and that he was absolutely in tears. And then she quit whatever job it was that required her to come face-to-face with a killer like that.
On the drive home I was quietly horrified. The professor and his little techie assistant were pretty blasé about what they showed us - crime scene photos, photos of bodies and blood and human cruelty, and I wondered if my mother wasn't right after all, that I'm not really cut out to be a criminal prosecutor. My first instinct was to call someone - maybe Marty, maybe Daniel - and have a quiet conversation, induce some laughter, because I'll never forget what I saw, and I know that if I pick the route I've held onto for so long I'll see much more. I wondered why anyone would want to do that to themselves, have to see that every day. Our professor said that there are thirty capital murder cases pending in this county alone, and that the homicide squad calls him to the scene of the crime when they find it. And then I realized that, if I put myself through what my teacher puts himself through every day, I'll be doing my part to bring some relief, some justice. The law is reactionary - lawyers aren't out on the streets stopping stupid kids from robbing stores; the police come to us when it's already too late for the victims. As in torts, where money is given in damages, conviction is little relief to the victim or the victim's family, but it's all we've got.
Whatever momentary fear I might have had, whatever spineless, PR-induced indecision might have come over me, whether or not I work for the Innocence Project this summer (and believe you me, it's a mighty good cause), I'm going to become a prosecutor, because someone has to face down the human horror and do something about it.
I'm okay now.
