stick with it.
We lost touch when I started law school in California, and my visits to
Portland had dwindled and then stopped. But then the New Yorker I
called my husband at the time took a job here, so I moved back. My
friendship with Chuck and the accompanying spark had reignited when he
showed up to testify as the arresting police officer in my first trial
as a DDA. And now here I was, divorced and long past high school,
trying to read his police reports without reminiscing.
Deciding I needed to take a break, I put on my coat and walked over to
the Pit for lunch. Tourists might assume that the Pioneer Place mall's
food court owed its nickname to its basement location, but they'd be
wrong.
My usual Pit selection is Let's Talk Turkey, the only downtown deli
that uses turkey from the bird instead of the pressed stuff. The good
stuff you get on Thanksgiving beats slimy slabs of processed turkey
food, hands down. However, healthy just wasn't going to cut it today.
I decided a corn dog on a stick and a chocolate milkshake promised the
perfect balance of sugar and fat. It had been awhile since I'd
indulged my weakness for food on a stick, but I soon remembered why I
always felt guilty when I did. The poor girl working at Food on a
Stick wore the same uniform that the unfortunate employees had been
subjected to when I was in high school: short shorts, a scoop-necked
tank top, and a hat that can only be described as phallic. Like the
generations of Food on a Stick girls that preceded her, she had long
flowing hair, thin arms and hips, and breasts that didn't look like
they wanted to stay in that little top. How does such a big company
get away with never hiring a man?
The floor of the food booth was elevated and surrounded on three sides
by mirrors. She was bent over at the waist, bobbing up and down as she
pumped the juice from a bucket full of lemons for the nation's most
famous fresh-squeezed lemonade. She seemed grateful to have a break
from the thrusting to get my corn dog.
As I walked away, I saw a group of prepubescent boys sitting on a bench
by the escalator, enjoying the view of the resumed lemon-pumping. I
knew they weren't the first group of boys to cut class to hang out and
watch a Food on a Stick girl at work. Hell, it was practically a rite
of passage in America's suburbs. That said, I still couldn't help
myself when I heard one of them speculate what the girl could do on his
stick.
Introducing myself as a deputy district attorney for Multnomah County,
I flashed my badge to make sure they appreciated the enormity of my
clout. 'You all better get back to school or I'm going to have to page
a police officer from the truancy unit to have you picked up.' The
kids hightailed it up the escalator faster than you can say
there's-no-such-thing-as-a-truancy-officer-anymore.
Feeling good about my lunch and my good deed, I headed back to the
courthouse to draft the complaint about Derringer.
A criminal complaint is the initial document used to charge a defendant
with a felony in Oregon. It's simply a piece of paper, signed by the
prosecuting district attorney,
notifying the defendant of the charges that have been filed. Once the
defendant is arraigned on the complaint, the State has a week to
present evidence to a grand jury and return an indictment. Without an
indictment, the complaint will be dismissed and the defendant will be
released from the court's jurisdiction.
I drafted a complaint charging Derringer with Attempted Aggravated
Murder, Kidnapping in the First Degree, and Unlawful Sexual Penetration
in the First Degree. I also included charges of Rape in the First
Degree and Sodomy in the First Degree, since Derringer could be held
responsible as an accomplice for the sex acts of the other suspect,
even if the second suspect was never caught. Finally, just so
O'Donnell wouldn't think I had completely disregarded his opinion, I
added the Class C felony of Assault in the Third Degree.
I walked the complaint over to the Justice Center so I could get a look
at Derringer and argue bail myself. The Justice Center is a newer
building two blocks down from the county courthouse. It houses PPB's
central precinct, a booking facility, holding cells for prisoners with
upcoming court appearances, and four non-trial courtrooms, used for
routine preliminary matters like arraignments, pleas, and release
hearings.
I took the stairs to JC-2, the courtroom where Derringer's case would
be called on the two o'clock arraignment docket, and handed the court
clerk a copy of the complaint, a motion for continued detention of the
defendant, and a supporting affidavit summarizing the facts. The JC-2
DA looked relieved when I told her I'd handle the Derringer matter
myself. She was a new lawyer I'd met a few weeks ago at a happy hour.
I suspected she was just getting used to the monotony of calling the
misdemeanors and petty felonies that comprise most of the JC-2 docket.
God help her if she had picked up the Derringer file to find an
Attempted Agg Murder complaint.
Judge Arnie Weidemann was presiding over the docket today. It could
have been worse. Weidemann was a judge who truly stood for nothing. He
was neither a state's judge nor a liberal. He didn't write law review
articles expounding on either judicial activism or conservative
restraint. He was interested in neither outcome nor analytical
process.
