19
Monday morning’s court was pretty heavy. Lots of misdemeanor possessions, assaults, a couple of B&E’s, and a handful of check-bouncers. Cyl DeGraffenried prosecuted and she was as brisk and businesslike as ever as we moved through the calendar.
First up was a middle-aged black woman charged with writing two worthless checks to Denby’s, a local department store. She waived counsel and pleaded guilty with explanation.
“See, what happened was I added up wrong and thought I had more than I did. And right after that, my sister’s little boy had to have glasses and I loaned her the money I was going to use to pay the store back. She give me a check last Friday a week ago and I put it in the bank and wrote Denby’s a new check, but my sister’s check won’t no good either. She was supposed to get me the cash money by first thing this morning, but her boyfriend’s car broke down and he took her car to go to work, so she didn’t have no way to come and—”
“Where does your sister live?” I asked.
“Near North Hills in Raleigh.”
“And she has the full—” I checked the figures on the paper before me—“the full three hundred and five you owe Denby’s?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Plus eighty dollars court costs?”
“Yes, ma’am. I told her it was going to cost her four hundred for all my aggravation and she says she’s got the money sitting there soon as she can get it to me.”
“You have a car?”
She nodded.
“How long will it take you to drive to North Hills and back?”
“Two hours?” she hazarded.
“Let’s make it three,” I said. “I don’t want you speeding. It’s nine-fifteen now. If you’re back here with the money by twelve-thirty, we can dispose of this today.”
She hurried out, trailed by the accounts manager from Denby’s.
Cyl DeGraffenried called her next case, Dwayne McDaniels, 23, black. Dreadlocks and baggy pants. He pleaded guilty to driving while impaired and possession of a half-ounce of marijuana.
“What’s the state asking, Ms. DeGraffenried?” I asked.
To my bemusement, she said, “Sixty days, suspended on condition he spend twenty-four hours in jail, pay a hundred-dollar fine and get the required alcohol and drug assessment.”
“Let’s give him the whole weekend to think it over,” I said.
McDaniels was followed by Joseph Wayne Beasley, 18, also black, who pleaded guilty of driving while his license was revoked. Looking at his record, I would normally have given him a suspended sentence, maybe two weekends in jail and a five-hundred-dollar fine.
Cyl asked for the suspended sentence, one weekend in jail and a three-hundred-dollar fine and tried not to smirk when I held to my original assessment of appropriate retribution.
Robert Scott Grice, 24, white, pleaded guilty to assault on his girlfriend. To his attorney’s visible dismay Cyl suggested he be sentenced to one hundred and fifty days in jail and not go near his girlfriend’s house or place of work.
I gave him seventy-five with the same conditions.
It was like that all morning, Cyl asking lower penalties for black youths and higher for whites so that I had to toughen the one and reduce the other to reach a sense of fairness.
Just before noon, I motioned her up to the bench.
“Your Honor?” she said sweetly.
“Forget it, Ms. DA,” I said just as sweetly. “Today does not count toward our bet.”
She smiled. “So, when you want to do dinner?”
By noon, the ranks had thinned considerably and the courtroom held less than a third it had this morning.
The woman who bounced checks at Denby’s had rushed through the doors a few minutes earlier, a thin glaze of perspiration on her dark face. She was now seated on the front bench right behind the bar. A crumpled white envelope was clutched in her hands and virtue shone in her eyes.
I motioned for her to come forward. “Your sister didn’t let you down, did she?”
“No, ma’am, Your Honor. Here it is, every cent.”
“I hope you didn’t break the sound barrier, getting to North Hills and back,” I said.
She chuckled and went over to my clerk to collect the necessary papers and then out to pay the cashier what she owed.
The Denby’s manager looked pleased as he drew a line through her name on his notepad. There were still a
