Judgment - Part One

When I was eighteen I was arrested for felony shoplifting. I was living in my car at the time with plans to move my mobile home out west to pursue a better life. I had saved a few thousand dollars for the trip. Some from legitimate work and some criminal. When you don't know anything else survival comes first. Even so I limited my deviance to entities I thought could afford to support my cause. It was charity they didn't know they were donating to. No harm no foul. Not until you get caught that is.
For theft to be a felony the sum of the crime must be $250 or more. The tent I attemted to remove from Ozark Outdoors was priced at just over four hundred. Admittedly this was a drop in the bucket compared to my career total but as they say, it is only a crime if you get caught. Well there I was, caught. Sitting in a cell being questioned. I had been there before but this time it was for real. I was on my own. No phone call to mom to come get her child. He'll I didn't even get a call at the station. It was county for me. Do not pay go and so on. Lucky for me I had friends and good ones. Hell I even made friends with the escorting officer who let me use his phone before he took me inside to be booked. My best friend Mike was standing by and he had money to post bail, and he did. He didn't use my money he used his and without a seconds thought. It was repaid of course but that isn't at all the point. Still no matter how good my buddies on the outside were they couldn't help me inside. I was on my own, with the worst of the city. There was no crime class. Shoplifting or murder, eighteen or forty we had a twenty by twenty to share for the night. After that I was elated to be free of bars, crushed to be free of my savings, but more pissed than ever at the system that I was sure was out to get me.
Having no money at all a hire lawyer never even crossed my mind. So I was asigned one and he was amazing. So much so that I did most, no, all of the work. He couldn't be bothered to speak to me so for sure he wasn't speaking on my behalf. In fact when it came to light that what I had actualy attempted to remove from the store wasn't even the whole tent I had to suggest to him that the charge should be reduced to a misdemenor give the newly discover value. This, of course, was never done and I wound up with a felony that still haunts me to this day.
The incompetent representation I was given in an attempt to satistfy my god given American rights only served to amplify my animosity. In fact I was robbing vending machines in govenment building all the way up to the day of my court apperence.
On that day I saw my public defender for the first time. He quickly ran me through my options letting me know it was best to just plead guilty. For once we were in agreement. There was no way in hell I would trust that idiot to see me through a trial.
Standing before the judge I was terrified. The owners of the store I had tried to steal from were there and they wanted blood. Not justice but blood. I cannot explain with this phones keypad or my elementary understanding of the English language the feeling that washed over me when I was given a fifty dollar fine and court cost as punishment. Hell he even gave me unsupervised probation so I could pursue my dreams in California. The store owners were outraged. I could tell this by thier screeching out burst I just smiled and walked away all the way out to the west coast where I have yet to unlawfully remove even so much ad a stick of gum. In reward for my about face in lifestyle I saw my wildest dreams and beyond realized. Now, almost fifteen years later, here we are again. Let's just see how things play out.