Can I Get A Witness?

Last week, the second installment of my evidentiary proceedings was scheduled after nearly three months of stalling by the prosecution. The lengthy intermission came despite the court’s request that the sequel be arranged within a week of the initial hearing back in early February.

Our resident persecutor, Bobby Gullette, had been ordered to produce his witness to allow the court to explore potentially critical details regarding the manner in which I was identified as the suspect in the crimes that allegedly occurred in the fall of 2009. Despite our best efforts to procure a second hearing, Gullette proved even more evasive than usual, to the point of blatantly ignoring our phone calls, for several months.

We even sent him a letter.

Then, late last week, my attorney, Chad Butcher, called to inform me that our persistence had finally paid off and we were scheduled to appear the following Tuesday afternoon.

Come Tuesday, my attorneys and I entered Fayette Circuit Court to find the doors to the courtroom locked up tight some ten minutes removed from the hearing. We loitered in the lobby for a few minutes, speculating about the reason for the holdup until Mr. Butcher called the judge’s chambers to inquire about everyone’s whereabouts.

Apparently, Mr. Gullette had alerted the judge, earlier that morning, that his witness would not be available to attend the hearing, thereby mooting the purpose of our appearance, that day. The meeting had been canceled, but we didn’t get the memo.

Justice, it seems, is an elusive mistress, indeed.

Scorsone once admonished me, after I’d arrived some two minutes behind schedule, that he fully expected me to respect the judicial process. He spoke sternly and threatened to hold me in contempt as I stood, stoic and silent, hoping the day would pass without seeing the inside of a jail cell.

Now, for something like the millionth time, it has been reiterated to me, in no uncertain language, that Mr. Gullette is not held to the same expectation. Most importantly, it is also quite clear that he knows this full well.

Furthermore, after six years of perpetual disregard for my existence by various agents of Fayette County, Kentucky, I must confess to have absolutely no regard for the implementation of justice, in this region of the country, at the very least. My own personal involvement in this system has rendered no positive or optimistic impression upon me and, frankly, compels a somewhat pointed, if obvious, question.

I gotta ask—

Considering the circumstances in which I currently find myself, amidst insidious police officers and vanishing evidence, a negligent county attorney and runaway witnesses, shady courtroom tactics and the repeated and merciless usurpation of every arena of life, why would any rational, reasonable, fair-minded person have anything remotely resembling respect for this process?

I have spent the last eighteen months in circuit court defending myself against the baseless accusations of the most uncivil servants while a feeble and disinterested prosecutor flips a coin to decide whether he'll show up for work that day. As Gullette perfects his select brand of prosecutorial absenteeism, I am present only because agents of a biased and fractured system will deprive me of my freedom if I am not.

Obedience at the barrel of a gun does not constitute respect.

It's been a long while since I maintained any infantile notion that the mechanisms of this process in any way pertained to ethics or any generally accepted moral standard. To persist in such a delusion, in light of my experience, would be tantamount to insanity. And while it is readily apparent to me that the depths of my attackers' corruption eclipses my ability to anticipate, this much remains clear—

Bobby Gullette will be more than happy to prevent any real investigation into the facts of my case by deliberately delaying court proceedings all the way up to the day of trial. He'll use every trick he knows to get us to June with as little information as possible because if we have all the evidence, my legal situation becomes a non-issue and certain unscrupulous popo just might be going to jail. As the sand passes through that hourglass, he's content to milk the clock for every second it's worth.

It’s a courtroom filibuster.

This way, he can cruise into trial and roll the dice with a white-bread, Kentucky jury where just about anything short of a public lynching is a live possibility.

Then again, maybe I'm giving him too much credit? Maybe he's just lazy?

Either way, something tells me this guy skipped class the day they went over due process.

Can I get a witness?