I didn’t have to be in court this morning. I don’t have to be in court, ever, unless we go to trial. If it takes 10 years, though, I’ll attend every hearing. A prosecutor told me that it’s good for the judge to see the victim, to remain mindful that someone was hurt and someone wants justice.
Also, as a reporter covering my own story, I need to witness firsthand. I don’t have the cushion of a whole buncha press writing their own takes. On big stories, when one of us is late, or has to dash early, the press corps tends to take pity and share notes or recordings or handouts. I love that about journalists.
One small matter. Today there was nothing to witness, as neither the prosecutor nor the public defender had any need to prattle about an outstanding psychiatric evaluation regarding her fitness to proceed. And really, it’s a formality. No one involved believes this case will go to trial. Well, maybe my attacker does, but then she’s what Wayne C. Booth, in “The Rhetoric of Fiction,” had in mind when he coined the term “unreliable narrator.”
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