Anything Less than the Best is a Felony

It’s Month 8, Day I’ve-Lost-Track of quarantine.  The last 4 months or so have really flown by, each of which had their own flavor.  Because of quarantine, I haven’t had much to write about.  Now that several months have passed, I think I’ve amassed enough interesting subjects to write about now.

July was quite a busy month: I was flooded with 4 trials in 4 weeks, which is a lot more than I usually handle.  I was also assigned a flood of new cases, ranging from shoplifting (usually easy to resolve) to domestic violence (which is definitely my least favorite kind of case at this point).  Although social distancing guidelines are still in place, the circuit court started picking up steam, with cases no longer being delayed.  With cases being assigned and hearings coming up, I’ve found myself leaving the house 4 or 5 days a week and constantly going in and out of court.  Sometimes, I even have to burn the midnight oil, watching body cam footage on my laptop to make sure I stay on top of everything.  After several months of court being frozen out, it’s a little reassuring to have work starting to return to normal…or at least it was, until new restrictions by the state in mid-November caused the county to start delaying trials yet again.  As such, it’s back to working from home and staying isolated for the good of the realm.

As opposed to July, August was a fairly barren month in regard to trials.  I only had 1 trial scheduled at the end of the month (that ended up settling at the last second), so my court outings this month were limited to pretrial hearings.  Still, I endured the annoyances and boredoms of August and survived the Summer of Quarantine.

September is when things got kind of intense.  Early in the month, the entire West Coast was engulfed in wildfires.  The exact causes of the fires varied from location to location, but Tillamook County saw some massive conflagrations due to some downed power cables (which also caused a blackout for several terrifying hours; the first of several recent technical problems).  As a result of the rampaging fires, we were treated to an Oregon sky that looked like this.

The view from my room.

Yeah.  It was bad.

Because of the incredibly unhealthy, smog-filled air, everyone was encouraged to stay indoors (already kind of a given during a massive pandemic).  Life dragged on for 6 days under the orange sun, when we were then greeted by an old Oregon friend: rain.  Lots and lots of rain.

Here's the view from my car, taken close to the county jail.

Like all things, good and bad, the dramatic sky eventually came to a close, though it was gradual.  It wasn’t until the end of September that I was able to look out from the courthouse steps and see a view like this.

Moving on to more positive news, I recently passed several milestones.  I have now officially been a lawyer, a resident of Tillamook, the owner of a law office, and the writer of this blog for an entire year!  Furthermore, I am now major felony-certified (hence the title of this post).  What does this mean?  To put it simply, I am now allowed to try any criminal case in Oregon except murder (and possibly treason, but that’s a bit of a grey area).  This means I’m now in the big leagues.  Sure, I’ll be taking on gnarlier cases (like sex crimes and felonies with mandatory minimums), but it’s all part of the escalating journey that is my legal career.

Because of work and quarantine, I was unable to find a costume for Halloween.  Given that I typically dress like a cross between Phoenix Wright and the Winter Soldier on any given workday, I figured I was fine in the costume department anyway.

As the year 2020 keeps chugging towards its conclusion, things can still feel somewhat overwhelming.  The global pandemic is still raging, the United States just finished a toxic election season, and I haven’t seen Cthulhu in person for 8 months.  With the holiday season coming up, there’s a lot of potential for things to get better or worse.  No matter what happens, I’ll try to stay alive, stay positive, and stay strong in the face of craziness.