I have never been inside a court. Never even been called for jury duty. All I know about court is from TV shows like Law & Order and Judge Judy. Walking in is like airport security, take off all metal, put it in a bin and walk through a metal detector. Belt included, but you can leave your shoes on. Don't bring in a cell phone with a camera or any type of drink, they will send you back out. Then there are all these plexiglass windows for different things, few occupied, and a cubical farm behind them. Theres a billboard with the different judges and printouts of the dockets with names and times under each along with some codes for each name that probably mean something to someone. My name was on the docket under my judge for the correct time that I was supposed to have my plea.
My lawyer showed up and knew a whole bunch of people who worked there. He got the police report and we sat down and reviewed it. It was pretty standard stuff for an OWI. I was to plead guilty and hope for reduced points on my license and minimum probation time. Fines and court costs not reduced however. The judge even recognized my lawyer and said "always nice having you in my court", which was a tiny relief. The whole judge thing went really quick, I had to say "I understand" about 10 times and finally "yes, I'm guilty".
After that we had to check in at one of the windows where there was a really backwards and complicated profiling test I had to take. All of the questions where in a book, each one multiple choice, in normal book order but the answer sheet was in columns going down and then from right to left. Completely backwards. Many of the questions were really weird too, like "When was the last time you thought about suicide? O Within 1 month. O Within 1 year. O Within the last 10 years. O Often. O Never. WTH? And if you weren't super careful with the backwards-columns thing it was really easy to pick the wrong circle to fill in. I learned later on that I had indeed answered, or filled in the wrong circle on a couple of the questions. One was something about a prior felony which I'm sure I meant to answer no as I've never have anything more than a speeding ticket, but they asked me about it. The other that they (or the computer) said I answered wrong was "How many months did you work last year?" and I answered "12", which isn't incorrect... I never got an answer as to why that one was flagged.
I had to sign papers on my license restriction and got a copy of the dos and don'ts. Basically, for 3 months I can drive to and from work, to doctors or hospitals and to court or mandatory meetings/appointments. Anything else I need to have a signed note as to what and why or else I go to jail. I didn't take any chances with this. If I had to go get parts for work I typed up a quick note with the date and where I was going and had the boss sign it. It's interesting to note that my cell phone, the only number I ever give out on any of this paperwork, got two really weird texts from two different people right about this time. The text just had a download button, but they weren't from anyone who would ever send me a download and one of the people never even text me. The download just had a progress bar and I never let it finish as I didn't know what it was. I checked with the contacts who it was sent from and they had nothing, they never send me any text on that date. Really odd. I went and virus checked my phone, turned off GPS and tightened up security on it thinking how easy it would be for the cops to track my every move with my phone. Just a stop at CVS for a pack of gum and I'm in violation of my restricted license! Boom, more money! I'm speculating here.
Other papers to sign was weekly drug testing I now had to do, which I got nervous about. I have a Medical Marijuana card, which is legal in my state, and use weed pretty much every night so I asked my lawyer about it. He said I need to talk to the prosecutor or the testing place about it. So I asked again at the prosecutor window and they said to make sure I show my card to the drug testing place. The drug testing place is called JAMS and I didn't have any option to choose a different place.
No new costs at this point, surprisingly.
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