Phoenix Metrics
Starting my second day of work today, and all goes well as the temperature rises. Literally, not figuratively. I was assigned my first project yesterday, and so far it's pretty interesting. The case comes to the Supreme Court as an appeal from a competency hearing where, at trial, a judge decides that a defendant is or is not competent to face his/her criminal charges. For those unfamiliar, in most jurisdictions if a court finds a criminal defendant incompetent to stand trial, it can do any number of things that do not involve going to trial. They could dismiss the case altogether, put the person into rehabilitation and bring the charges back against them when s/he is sane or competent, or even have that person committed. But not proceed with trial. Why? Because courts have long held that those who are not fully aware of what they are doing or what is going on are not going to benefit from being punished. One point of punishment is to deter the person from doing it again, and if you are incompetent then you don't have the facility to understand why you're being punished. If you even understand that.
Interesting stuff, and I had a lot to learn about the Arizona appellate system in one day. Due to ethics concerns and matters of judicial and simple fairness, I cannot say much more than that about the case I'm working on.
Otherwise, the trip out to Arizona was nice. And quick. I made it here from central North Carolina in just over forty-two hours--including sleeping. I didn't speed (much); just drove at a steady pace and kept my eyes on the horizon. Despite making good time as I traveled through North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and into Arizona, I saw some amazing sights and landscapes along the way. Somewhere outside of Amarillo, for example, an artist had constructed an exhibit of five or six cars buried nose first in the flat, dusty ground. The cars were equidistant and all leaning at the exact same angle, like trees after a hurricane. It was a sight to see, especially seemingly so far out of town.
My time here in Arizona will be well spent, I think. I've yet to make it deep downtown, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunity for that. Our supervisors have given us no rigid work schedule, leaving us quite autonomous as to the time we keep. To comply with Northeastern's co-op requirements, I must work at least thirty-five hours a week. The powers that be at the Arizona Supreme Court say that as long as I'm getting my work done and am generally in the office and accessible for those thirty-five hours, they don't care when I do them. The traditional summer court intern thing to do seems to be to work them Monday through Thursday and take Friday off.
That'll do just nicely.
More to come...