The Inquisition of Guilt

You are asked 52 questions in the City of Charlottesville Circuit Court when you enter a guilty plea. 54 if you were on probation at the time of your charge, 59 if you submit an Alford Plea. If you have a good attorney, your answers are succinct.

Yes or no. 

If your attorney sucked, this is torturous. 

Amongst the questions, the legal mixture of latin and complexity bombards your ears. If you lack patience, you may not even care about the questions anymore, you just want this whole mess to be over. The hearings, the denied motions for bond, the droning on and on and on by the commonwealth of the alleged facts of the case.

It’s not rocket science. 

It’s not an equation requiring pages and pages of proof.

You are guilty. You know, they know, everyone knows. 

Whether it’s a security camera, an affidavit, or police body camera footage, there is no weaseling your way out of this; the facts point to your culpability. 

52 questions to find ones plea to be voluntary, knowingly, intelligently. 

I wonder if defendants ever wonder if the questions will end. 

If they feel trapped in place, where time seems to be irrelevant to the situation at hand. 

Where the repetition of some sorts becomes so demanding, so long, so droning, so exhausting you wonder if you’ve been imprisoned in time and they’ve forgotten your cell block.

You know, deep down, that it is impossible for this to last forever, that truth is almost engrained into our DNA, but your brain, such a reasonable and intelligent hub of consciousness, still decides to project doubt that this, this one thing right here, will entrap you and you will die in this moment. 

I wonder if they ever feel that way - almost bored by the severity and formality of this experience, vying for something more stimulating to happen, such as watching paint dry.

Some walk into the court room with this disposition, so indifferent, like their offense against society is somehow an inconvenience to them. Like their tax sponsored presence somehow disrupts their projected plans for the day. 

Some contrast the thoroughness, professionalism, respect, and integrity the court pours into them with indifferent arrogance. Others are shellshocked by it. 

You can witness their disposition fall away, the severity of their actions crescendo into the courtroom, reverberate agains the walls.

Their hands shake as their swear their oath of honesty, the quiver in their voice as they answer over and over and over again, question after question after question. 

Some you can see, that this is their rock bottom. That their shame culminates and has attacked their idea of the self. 

In their eyes, you can see the awakening of self discovery, the point they realize that their lives are worth more, they are worth more, that their value is not defined by their finite life circumstances and their refusal to be here again realigns their plans for their life.                                              

And I cannot possibly think of a worse thing than being asked 52 questions if you enter a guilty plea, 54 if you were on probation at the time of your charge, 59 if you submit an Alford plea, when you are in the pit of self evolution. 

When you are reborn again, naked to thy self, thy thoughts, thy sentiment. 

When you feel this cataclysmic shift within your perception of your being that rage begins to spill over. 

That you retreat from the uproar of your destined state of nature and come to mediation to seek peace. 

To seek an end to this nasty, brutish, shortness and submit to the commonwealth and her rules. 

The discontentment of the fallout of our actions push out the defiance in our childish ways. 

Where we give up the petulant mission of becoming and focus on averting.

Indictment.