If only court were like college

While in college, all of my professors had a rule. If they were more than fifteen minutes late, class was cancelled. I find out this morning after arriving at court twenty minutes early that the honourable judge is running at least thirty minutes late. Oh joy.

that isn't actually a rule in college...it's a rule that students make up so they don't feel bad missing class.

maroon92 wrote: that isn't actually a rule in college...it's a rule that students make up so they don't feel bad missing class.

depends on the prof... I had several that said that on Day 1

At least professors can't send cops out to arrest you for cutting class.

Regarding college, if you don't want to be there, leave. Seems pretty simple to me. In regards to the court, you stay there until they tell you that you got rescheduled.

Dr. Hess wrote: Regarding college, if you don't want to be there, leave. Seems pretty simple to me. In regards to the court, you stay there until they tell you that you got rescheduled.

That really grates on my nerves too... I did jury duty last month and I am a contractor - so it really is a burden to take off two days and not get paid. These bastards are the most arrogant wasters of other people's time I've ever met. They command you to show up at 8:30AM, don't bother to even address you until quarter of 10 (to say the judge had just rolled his majestic ass into the bldg. and proceedings would begin) and then leave you sitting in a room without any further input until they get around to releasing you at 2PM.

The next time my civic duty rolls around they can send the sheriff to pick me up.

I actually enjoy jury duty, Sure, it's a PITA, but it affords a glance at how our "Justice System" really works, which can be enlightening, or scary, depending on the case.

walterj wrote:

Dr. Hess wrote: Regarding college, if you don't want to be there, leave. Seems pretty simple to me. In regards to the court, you stay there until they tell you that you got rescheduled.

That really grates on my nerves too... I did jury duty last month and I am a contractor - so it really is a burden to take off two days and not get paid. These bastards are the most arrogant wasters of other people's time I've ever met. They command you to show up at 8:30AM, don't bother to even address you until quarter of 10 (to say the judge had just rolled his majestic ass into the bldg. and proceedings would begin) and then leave you sitting in a room without any further input until they get around to releasing you at 2PM. The next time my civic duty rolls around they can send the sheriff to pick me up.

I just had a less than savory experience at the local court. The judge was the BIGGEST shiny happy person i have ever encounted in my entire life. And he, too, was about 30 minutes late.

To compound the situation, (this had to do with the "i got arrested" thread i made a bit ago) this was dealing with that, and i have PROOF that i was there for the same offense they tried to nail me for again, had a warrant out for, and tried to get me to pay again. Ridiculous. So i get to go back and deal with this jerk again so i can shove all my paperwork down his throat, accompanied with an attorney so i can get some money out of this blowhard and the corrupt inept court system in this podunk town.

Not that i'm bitter.

But hey, at least i finally found out WHY i was picked up, right? That's the bright side, RIGHT?

So, the judge finally rolls in, nearly an hour and a half late. But, just as he rolls in, the fire alarm goes off, so we all get to stand outside for 30 minutes plus.

We are let back in, and he apologizes for being late. Then, he starts dismissing cases, and/or reducing the charges. ON EVERY CASE where the defendant bothered to show up. To those that did not show up, he gave some rather steep fines.

My turn comes, the officer presents his evidence, and then the fire alarm goes off AGAIN. We stand outside for another half hour plus.

Get back inside, the officer that was there to testify in my case is gone (to a medical appointment), and my fine is reduced from reckless to improper driving. I got a full sentence in my defense (before alarm #2). The two cases after me were the same officer's, both reckless, and both dismissed because he wasn't there.

Oh well, it could have been MUCH worse.

And I had all but one professor tell us that if they weren't there after fifteen minutes that they wouldn't be there. The one holdout told us that he or his TA would be there NO MATTER WHAT. Campus was closed one day due to an ice storm, and he still showed up, and gave his lecture to maybe fifty of five hundred that showed up.

Did you have an attorney? For a reckless, you should have. I'm guessing that you could have had it dismissed because the "witness" against you wasn't there anymore and "you had another question for him."

The students at my medical school had a "team" effort. We would record all lectures, then everyone would take a turn at transcribing them, after which copies were distributed to all the students. You could hire out your transcription to a professional scribe if you didn't want to do it yourself. We'd get copies of the lecture slides from the professor to include, etc. Some people didn't go to class at all, just studied the notes. A lot of them, actually. Others liked to have the audio/visual thing going and would show up for class. Maybe about 25% towards the end of 2nd year. I think that the idea caught on and eventually other schools started doing the same thing.