Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I’m writing on this special day for all you lovers out there. Fill up on V-Day chocolates for me

This entry comes with a disclaimer: some graphic material.

After the holiday’s court was back in session on January 8th and I had an office regular schedule, my training was done and now I’m in the regular shift rotation. At the end of the week, I was lucky enough to be assigned the closing arguments for the Martic case. It was not disappointing.

Martic is a strange individual. He isn’t a very big man and sits in the accused area just looking around at everyone while sending notes to his defense team. He has the classic “shifty eyes” and just gives me a bad feeling. He, out of all the accused I have seen in court makes my skin crawl. I often wondered how this small man became such a powerful political figure in his former country.

The closing arguments lasted for three days. On Thursday the defense was giving it’s closing statements and kept reviling protected witness names which had to be redacted (edited out) off the tape. I had 12 that day, a record. Along with this, the defenses biggest argument was to blame everything on Bobbic, a guy who committed suicide about a year ago, easy to put the blame on a dead guy.

On Friday, the last day of closing arguments was very exciting and not disappointing. The defense showed a video with dead Serbian solders in mettle coffins with viewing window so you could see that there throats had been slit and there heads bashed in. The point was that bad things happened on both sides and Martic is being accused unfairly because there is enough blame to go around. Part of that is true. However, one side showed less mercy and more brutality and the other side was on the defensive. Though that is what war is about. This is the big time so take it like a man. OK, now I’m side tracking.

At the end of the day, Martic was granted the last ten minutes and he got up to speak in his own defense. This is when my question was answered, “How could this shifty eyed little man hold so much power”? He opened his mouth to speak and I was surprised at how dynamic he sounded. His posture changed and he gained a few inches. His voice resonated across the court room and was candy coated and sprinkled with a charisma that made his words easy to swallow. This was the man that became a high political figure in Croatia.

As he spoke, he began to belittle the prosecution council. Talking about “convicting me would be a feather in the cap of such a young lawyer from a corrupt country that helped to destroy my country”. The prosecution’s main counsel was a guy in his mid thirties from the states, I’m not sure where. Then Martic began to talk about Pres. Clinton and offered reasons why Clinton chose to bomb his country. I can’t specifically say what was said because the judge thought the comment inappropriate and had it redacted from the transcript. Though if you use your imagination, it had something to do with Clinton needing the distraction to get people talking about something other then what he was doing in the oval office with his intern. It was a classic moment and I thought I would fall off my chair. When I called in the redaction Richard came in to edit the segment out and I told him he was going to love it and Martic gave him a going away present. After Richard read the transcript he turned to me and said with a big smile, “oh please can’t we leave this in”. I said,”If it was up to me we would”. The one thing that you can hear on the tape after the piece was edited out is our kind hearted Judge Miloto say with a scrunched up face, “What does this have to do with his unzipped paints”? Classic.

After court was done I came back into the office and everyone was talking about what had happened. We all watched the delay feed so everyone could see the action unfold thirty minutes later. Of course on the delay, there was a nice slate over the juicy bits, and then you could hear Judge Miloto’s comment. The office was filled with the roar of gut splitting laughter.

My first official week was a good one.

Cheer,

I love you all

Kim