Eight Feet Deep

A wise man once said: “Stu­pid is as stu­pid does.”

This morn­ing I lis­tened as a defen­dant appear­ing for sen­tenc­ing before the local crim­i­nal court judge copped to stu­pid­ity as the rea­son the man com­mit­ted the acts for which he pleaded guilty. Those charges were for evad­ing arrest and imper­son­at­ing a pub­lic servant.

I was in the crim­i­nal court­room this morn­ing for a free­lance gig and while wait­ing through the docket call. I got to view the seem­ingly never-ending parade of idiocy that keeps our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in business.

The facts in this par­tic­u­lar defendant’s charges were not totally clear as he had already pleaded guilty and was only in court for pun­ish­ment. But it appears that he ran from police on a motor­cy­cle at speeds of what he said was near 100 mph. His charge of imper­son­at­ing a police offi­cer stemmed from his attempt to buy a range-finder for play­ing golf dur­ing which time he had asked for a police dis­count. Whether the two charges were related or if he flashed a phony badge eludes me.

I do know in a brief research of the defendant’s crim­i­nal records in three states that he had prior charges for reck­less dri­ving, speed­ing and crim­i­nal imper­son­ation. It makes me won­der if he is a ser­ial imper­son­ator. He no doubt has a need for speed. He also claims to be a pro­fes­sional bike racer but given his his­tory I am not sure I would take his word at face value.

The judge sen­tenced the man to pro­ba­tion and a fine on the two charges. Let’s just hope that the man doesn’t try to imper­son­ate a pro­ba­tion officer.