Had my day in court. Well, courthouse. No worries, I was just acting as a student to get my hands on some transcripts, but it was still exciting! I needed to participate in the final ... thingie, but was wildly out of luck, because as it seems, not many of the accused ever actually show up for the verdicts. Still, I didn't know that at the beginning. I dressed up nicely, conservatively (to my best efforts, to be sure), and left all my knives and recording devices at home, except for the phone (should i get convicted of something by accident, to call the library to send me some books). I had loads of speeches and explanations prepared for the guard at the door, but he just waved me in, and then for the court people, who just waved me in and then for the judges, who just waved me to the seats. Doesn't seem like anyone cared particularly, that I was there, a complete neophyte who didn't even know the color codes for the robes. (I now know judges wear black, prosecutors wear gray silver and lawyers wear purple burgundy.)
But, like I said, once the excitement was over and I was siting, alone, in courtrooms, the trials were just being postponed, because they were all no-shows. And from what i could understand, the accused were all pretty sad people - junkies, bums, mental patients, the Romani ... Their punishments were mechanical and the whole thing is fairly spooky.
I finally, getting worried this whole thing will be a lot harder than previously assumed, met a lawyer who helped me get my hands on a cool transcript - a simple, but educational procedure, and I got my homework done. I AM tempted to go back to the courthouse, though. People actually treated me extremely friendly and even show-offy.
This should be the first lesson in my career as a detective's assistant: people simply love to talk about themselves. The more fascinated, the more in awe and deeply respectful you are of them or compassionate of their situation, they just won't shut up.
... Unless you're the one being looked at as the accused. Then you're fucked.
