Being that my client was a student in college , in an engineering program , which will probably put him in working for some government project at some point in his career , it was important for him to avoid the taint of the charge of tampering with a government document. And even avoid the presentation of a falsified government document in the course of commiting an offense. Yup the use of his buddies docs to buy a 12 pack of corona lites suddenly becomes not so much an underage thing as it becomes a career security problem for later life. He knew it, I knew it, the prosecutor knew it. So some nice words with the prosecutor and a little plea bargaining and my fine young would be engineer was pleading guilty to making noise so as to disturb . Yup he made noise on a Saturday night. Even the Judge was amused by the arrangement. My client goes away happy from the court. But he was the only one. Who knew that using a fake license to buy booze can get you put on a counter terrorism watch list in our new more secure state of fear. Yup, and forever after you are jammed up big time.
That was because as we waited to be heard, we had to go through a number of probation violations, summoned before the court to give account of behavior which constitutes a violation of probation, which if there was room would gain one a trip back to a county lock up somewhere. There is of course no room at the inn so to speak, so it is up to the Judge to craft some remedy. Ok, you
will report to your officer for the next 4weeks, you will enter a rehab program, you will get tested twice a week for the next month. The cases are drug cases. The drug is heoin. First up is a man, the judge asked him How old are you ? 36 comes the answer . The judge matter of factly tells him that most 36 year old heroin addicts are already dead, How did you escape. Got a late start comes the response, I did not start until I was 31. He tells the judge that he has been clean for 67 days. The judge says very good, how did you do that, the man answers that he has been in the County Lock Up for 67 days thus dampening the mood of moments before that was celebrating sobriety. He is dispatched home with a good luck and admonishment to get in a program.
Next up is a young woman from Port Jervis NY , who is asked why her home town seems to be so embedded in heroin addiction, for the Judge tells her that they often see people from her town in their courts. She says there is nothing happening there, to which the Judge says maybe it is a place to leave. She says there is no place to go. She is 23, unskilled, uneducated and arrested on consecutive days for heroin possession. The judge asked her what she has been doing since her arrest, she tells of a program run by the Catholic Church and says she is doing ok . He allows her to go off to another town and have them adjudicate her as she had also been arrested there. Those with the education flee to NY, or DC, La, Chicago, Atlanta, those without are left behind to pump gas and do drugs.
This is taking place one of the toniest towns in the area, the train runs from Main Street to Hoboken from where the financial mavens ride across the river to Wall Street. The big rock sits in the middle of the main street giving the town its name. The least likely place in America to be dealing with heroin issues. But that is not the case as the remainder of the calendar has a smattering of new cases. It seems as if the local police know how to spot the cars, older dented, mismatched tires, windows hazed by cigarette smoke, younger folks in pairs in the middle of the day when others are working fit a profile. This is the dirty jeans and t shirt crowd, not the Talbots and LL Bean preppy citizen of the small burg. Do these kids not know that they stand out like a zebra at a lion convention. It seems as if the persons caught can't even get 5 miles from their purchase before they need to pull over and inject, that five minutes puts them from buy to this town like a well oiled clock.
A few short weeks ago I attended a funeral where the decedent's grandson showed up, having suffered through a traumatic accident brought on by substance dependency . A life altering injury from which there is no recovery because of drugs.
Today I went to the probate court and in discussion with the clerk, she offers that people are living longer as my case involved a person who died at 104, I say somedays when I look at the obits it would seem otherwise. She then says suicides and overdoses are the young ones you see in the papers. I think of all those towns of Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and elsewhere that are not dealing with the wave of addition and I think of the hole that is being opened in an entire generation. She commented after I mentioned the hole in the generation and likened it to the aids epidemic that destroyed so many lives.
Their generation will have its own gap of persons lost to the world by virtue of this scourge. A big hole that has consumed so many. Hope someone comes up with the answer. Because that hole seems to widen everyday. Funny how in our country we have to have a raging wild forest fire burning all about us before someone says "I smell smoke".