Jack's Dilemma

You're probably wondering what happened to Jack. The shrink said he was psychotic but found him competent to stand trial. Competent simply means you know who the judge is and his role, as well as that of your lawyer and the DA. That's competent. Otherwise you can be seeing the courtroom in psychedelic zoom in and still be fit to go to trial.

So Jack's going to trial. He got busted again for telling his wife via the Internet that he loved her. Another $7500 in bail that Jack doesn't really have. But the trial keeps getting delayed. The judge regularly assigned to our courtroom has been laying low recently and the substitutes could be my grandchildren. So Jack gets one continuance after another. In February, IF the regular judge is there, I imagine he's going to start setting Jack's many indiscretions for trial.

Jack's defense is that he never hit her and I believe him. The domestic violence laws, however, include many other things besides classic battering: verbal abuse, stalking, threats. Jack can't get that one through his skull. His wife finds his many love letters harassing and in the end it will matter very little that he never hit her.

It's called the DV trap.