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Back to Ron Huber's Life. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ron Huber's Day in Court, January 3, 2007.
Rockland. The Superior Court is housed within the original
courthouse (built in1874) in Rockland
I've arrived a bit early. Left my car at the radio station and
walked to the court house.
My Court appointed attorney Bill Pagnano is here. He greets me
quickly and says he has a few more cases to do in District Court, in
the adjoining decade-old new wing of the building, whose courtrooms
lack the character and magnificence of the old.
At the clerk's window in the hallway I search out my name on the
list of the day's coming events. Knox County superior court's daily
schedule for January 3, 2007 lists me, among the many, as follows,
ROSCS-CR-00485
I sit on a bench in the corridor. Wait. Toilet flushes loudly in
the near distance. Shuffling footsteps of more arriving visitors
resound in the stairwell leading from the ground floor.
People wander into the hallway between the two courts. The window
get more visitors. A woman seeks a protection from abuse order.
$30. A punished unlawful clamdigger (closed area) comes to the
window to pay his fine. His accomplices agree that getting it done
quickly with a plea was better than going to court. Getting on with
life. Take the lumps (the least # to be sure) but take 'em, pay 'em
forget 'em, he says.
Pagnano is in peak form, moving quickly about the hall. He is
“lawyer for the day,” there to handle all legal questions from all
comers without charge in addition to appearing on behalf of his
clients. He tells me he will "have something" from the prosecutorial
side, then rushes off after spying another newly arrived
visitor/client. Pagnano has more court appointed clients than any
two others public defenders at the courthouse. He also represents
court appt’ds in two other courthouses in other counties.
I enter the Superior Courtroom. Magnificent 19th century/early 20th
century wooden chamber. Cathedral ceiling, polished woodwork making
up the complex of pews, stalls, tables and judges bench; wooden walls
that have seen many generations pass through as judge and judged.
The portraits of four judges of the past hang one to each wall.
Sober, somber looking men, some with the books and other tools of
their trade in their painting.
A wooden door directly behind the middle judge's seat (there are
three judge seats in a row.) "JUSTICE" is carved into the lintel above in
capitals. Below the judges’ broad altar-like table, a just-as-long but
humbler table stretches for the clerks of the court. There are two
tables for the witnesses, two for the prosecutors.
A man in bright orange sweat pants and dress shirt, middle aged,
glasses and mustache, discreetly handcuffed, sits on a wooden pew
flanked by a Knox County jailor and a court bailiff. He beams. All
three are relaxed.
I brood...my attorney William Pagnano, Esq says he would "have
something" from the prosecutor. Time to wait, then. Will it be
disorderly and phone obstruction? Or phone only? Payable ASAP
fines, surely. It would be good to avoid the pricey weekly social
correctness meetings...
Waiting waiting. What will the toll be? Pagnano talks briskly to the
orange panted prisoner. Then he learns that one of his clients is
in a holding cell. The law officer warns him that there is the scent
of mace in there; they've used it on his client, apparently.
The Assistant DA ambles in with her heap of manila folders sets
themn on her desk.
Pagnano joins her. He and she bend their heads, his grizzled grey,
hers blonde, together over the cases, she at her desk, he bending
over from before her, both murmuring as she flips the pages. Like
the Norns they calmly spin out the fates for Pagnano's clients of
the day.
A third policeman joins the bailiff and jailer. This looks like
Anthony Camporiale, the silvery haired Rockland City cop who on May
14, 2006 carried out a dignified arrest of yours truly at my home
high in the Thorndike apartments overlooking Rockland Harbor, for
allegedly slapping Samizu Matsuki, who was then my wife. The law men
& law woman hang out with the orange prisoner, who has a friend or relative
stopping by to chat pleasantly with him.
"You'll have to take off your hat" a bailiff reminds a man wearing a
billed cap, next to me in the pew.
Pagnano and the prosecutor are now seated side by side, chatting
over the cases in their manila folders, discoursing and mildly
disputing as they go. They dispose of one case, a fine shall be
paid. Then a flurry of motion as another man arrives--the DA? An
attorney? He and the woman prosecutor and Pagnano go into an
anteroom. The door locks behind the first two. Bill tries the door.
Locked. He knocks and is let in. Then two more attorneys separately
knock their way into the room.
2:05. The prosecutress comes out, saying "forgot my book". She picks
it up and heads back in, the door meanwhile held open by the
bailiff. Cops slouch bored against the wood counter by the prisoner.
2:30 Bailiff comes out, says things are taking a bit longer than
anticipated but that attorney Pagnano will be out shortly. She goes
in search of "Dennison" who is not in the courtroom.
Another man (lawyer?) returns from behind the wooden door. He picks
up his coat from the bench by the cops and prisoner, chats with them
and leaves.
The still warm air, the hum of some electronic device makes the room
drowsy. Bill Pagnano must be negotiating for all he's worth. There
are about eight of us awaiting Bill's legal wizardry
2:40 Bill Pagnano, followed by the rest, leaves the anteroom. The
deals have been made; now Bill takes his clients out into the hall
one by one to pitch it to them. Another lawyer runs his bargain
past an accused clammer. Pagnano speaks with one woman who decides
she wants to go forward to a jury trial.
He reaches me. I am getting assault charge dropped provided I plead
guilty to hanging up the phone. I must play $300 plus some
additional costs (turns out to be $70 more.)
Pagnano notes that the bail conditions forbidding contact are gone;
I will be able to meet with Samizu if I wish. But first we must go
through the motions with the judge.
The prosecutor returns to her table, pores over files, Bill pores
over his, the bailiff opens and reopens door, peeking at the small
number of people inthe courtroom.
3 pm Finally: "All rise, please." The center door opens behind the
judge thrones. Out steps a blonde woman in judge's black robe, who
scans the courtroom briefly, then settles in the judges chair on the
north end of the long table. She sorts out her papers, gets a
murmured briefing from a clerk and the cases--all plea
bargains--roll past.
First the prisoner. He gets a sentence of five days to be
concurrent with time already served, hence will be out shortly
anyway. Then myself! The prosecutor intones that she is
recommending dropping the assault charge and finding me guilty of
hanging up the 911 call. The judge repeats it back to her, glances
at her papers, looks up at me (I'm standing, blue pants, blue
sweater over a collared shirt.) and repeats them once more asking if
I understand this. "Yes, your honor" How do I plead? "Guilty" I
say loudly and clearly.
Very good. She pronounces that the fine will have an additional 70
dollars attached to it for some unclear reason. Gives me until
January 11th to pay it off.
Pagnano turns to me, "You're free to go." I grin. It's true! He
notes that the bail conditions are now gone, so I can go see my
ex-wife. I remind him that the Protection from Abuse order still has
some conditions to it...must meet with a third party in tow or in
public place. He looks surprised but only briefly, then directs me
to the clerks window in the corridor where I will pick up the
court's legal paper of the decision; these I must sign to be finally
done.
I do so. Out in the hallway again, I merge with the legions of the
judged: people queued up to receive their final papers from the
court bureaucracy. "Three years!" a young man says ruefully, to his
shocked friends. He notes they are going to allow him to instead
join the armed services, and they shrug, less shocked. Another
clammer convict pays up. The siren call of the clams in mudflats
closed to harvest for reasons of pollution or red tide is
irresistible to some of the shellfish hunters
I get my court papers, and inquire as to the bail money. "Outside
party?" she wonders, Yes, a close relative. She looks though my
file. The one with the Waldoboro PO box? Yes, I say. Tell them,
she says, that they should get a check on Monday and, if they don't
get it by Wednesday, to come to the court and she will cut them a
check right then and there.
I thank her, take my documents and depart the courthouse. It is
over. My cell phone is in my car a half mile away. There, I start
phoning out the news.
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