"What's going on?" I asked.
"You've got a case on the docket. State v. Derringer."
"For what?"
"Call," she said. Cases were on the call docket when they were about
to go to trial. Before a judge and courtroom were set aside, the
parties were supposed to show up and report the status of plea
negotiation and whether they were ready to go to trial. We usually
sent one DA to the call docket to report information for the entire
office. Poor Alan Ritpers was the current call DA.
"I gave all my trial information to Ritpers. The Derringer case just
got arraigned the other day," I said.
"Yep, and that's why you need to get down here," she said. "Lopez
called yesterday to have the case added to the docket, and Ritpers is
clueless. The judge wants you down here. Now."
I headed straight down, skipping the antiquated and over-stressed
elevators for the four flights down to Judge Leeson's courtroom. Lisa
was waiting near the defense table and rose when I entered the room.
"My apologies, your honor," I said. "I wasn't aware of the
appearance."
"Check your docket, Ms. Kincaid." Maria Leeson peered down at me over
the top of her half-moon glasses. "Alright, Ms. Lopez, now that we've
got a DA here who's heard of your client, tell me again what you're
asking for."
"Thank you, Judge Leeson. My client is currently in custody, unable to
meet bail imposed by Judge Weidemann during the arraignment. He wants
a speedy trial, and I'm requesting the earliest available trial
date."
Leeson pointed her glasses down at me again. "Ms. Kincaid?"
"The defendant waived his speedy trial rights at arraignment, your
honor. In light of that waiver, the State requests a trial date in the
usual course." Translation: let the defendant rot for a year while I
finish getting the goods against him.
"Did you waive at arraignment, Ms. Lopez?" Leeson asked.
"Only because of the limited ability to consult with my client, your
honor. I was appointed to the case at arraignment and only had so much
time before the case was called. Ms. Kincaid was requesting a no bail
hold, so, as you can imagine, my initial discussion with my client
focused on the release issue. Once that was decided, I didn't have
much choice other than to make the usual stipulations. Since then,
I've spoken further to Mr. Derringer. He can't make bail, and he
wants a speedy trial."
I did my best to argue that Lopez should've preserved all rights at
arraignment if she had any doubts, but we all knew that's not how it
works.
"Alright," Leeson said. "I'm allowing the defendant to withdraw his
waiver of speedy trial rights, meaning he gets his trial within thirty
days." Leeson held a hand up to the court reporter, indicating her
wish to go off the record. "You sure about this, Lisa?"
Invoking speedy trial rights was incredibly short-sighted. The
requests usually only came from newbies who'd never been in custody
before. I was surprised to hear that Derringer couldn't stick it out
while his attorney prepared for trial.
Lopez shrugged. "I've advised Mr. Derringer against it. What can I
do?"
Leeson arched her eyebrows and signaled for the court reporter to go
back on record. "Alright then, let's set a date. I got a bunch of
judges out for spring break in late March, so ... that means Judge Lesh
two weeks from Monday."
No way. "Your honor, this is an attempted murder case. There is
physical evidence that still needs to be tested. The state needs more
than two weeks."
"Too bad, Ms. Kincaid. I don't have anything else. If you can't
proceed when the case comes up for call before trial, Mr. Derringer
will be re cogged
I had to be ready for trial in two and a half weeks, or else Derringer
would be released on his own recognizance. Lopez's strategy was a
risky one. She was betting that we had only the evidence in the
initial police reports. Too bad for her; she placed the bet without
the benefit of the new evidence Chuck gave me. A quick trial date was
fine with me.
The change in schedule gave me a good excuse to revoke the dinner
invitation I had extended to Chuck. I broke the bad news to Dad and
worked late instead.
My pager buzzed the next day around one as I was inhaling fish tacos at
my desk. I could tell from the prefix that it was a bureau cell
phone.
"Garcia."
I recognized Tommy's voice. "Tommy, it's Samantha Kincaid. You page
me?"
"Yeah. I was out riding with patrol checking on hot spots, when
whaddaya know; your vic's friend, Haley Jameson, is sitting with a
bunch of the other street urchins outside Pioneer Courthouse."
At any given time, you could find a pile of homeless kids hitting
people up for money by the Max tracks on the north side of the federal
appellate courthouse, next to fountain pools decorated with stone
beavers, Portland's unofficial mascot.
"If you've got the time to walk down here, I thought your connection
with the vie might help me get a rapport with this girl. Otherwise,
I'm left saying that I know someone who knows someone."
I looked at the clock. "I've got time. Tell me where to meet you, and
I'll be right down."
Tommy met me at the southeast corner of the Pioneer Courthouse.
"So tell me about this girl," I said. "She been through the system?"
Garcia shook his head. "Nothing serious. Couple RJVs, loitering pops.
Spent a few nights at juvie, went through LAP a couple times."
I'd seen plenty of them before. Street kids rarely got picked up for
anything more severe than runaway juvenile violations, even though they
were often at the fringes of more serious crimes like robberies and
assaults. If they had any experience in the system at all, it was
usually for curfew violations, public drunkenness, loitering, or
runaway juvenile pops. Typical arrests for those kinds of offenses
resulted in a night at juvie, a trip back home or a foster placement,
and maybe a little court-ordered counseling. LAP stood for Learning
Alternatives to Prostitution. The probation department developed the
program a few years ago. Participants were supposed to learn
legitimate job skills and enough self-worth to stop seeing the sale of
sex as a good deal. It might be a good program for someone serious
about getting out of the life, but, like most court-ordered counseling,
it was treated as a joke by the people forced to go through it to avoid
jail.
"So what's the plan?" I asked.
"OK, here's how we need to play it. If we single her out of the group,