Remember growing up sometimes people would say, "The only stupid question is the unasked one?"
Well, it used to bother me then- I mean, I could usually sit and amuse myself for however long the person was blathering away thinking of examples of stupid questions, pondering the meaning of "stupid" (Does it include off topic though insightful questions? What about questions out of ignorance?) or just day dreaming about something else- but I just thought it was a pretty (yep) stupid thing to say.
Well, after six long years as an attorney I am here to tell you that, yes, there are a lot of stupid questions and that sometimes, you should refrain from asking.
Today at arraignment, a defendant and her family asked me if they had to be there since they had posted a cash bond. This is after a 15 minute speech by the Judge about what an arraignment is, what their bond means and so forth....
It was such a stupid question that I kept figuring I had missed something. I asked a follow up question or so to figure out if I was missing something. No, it was in fact that dumb of a question.
I'm afraid I probably conveyed how dumb a question this was when I told them that, Yes, they had to be here. My eyebrow was raised and I could hear the "dude I don't know what the fuck you think is going on here but your 18 year old daughter/girlfriend/ whatever she is to you was arrested for lewd behavior which is a charge I have never seen before and apparently you have someplace to be but she needs to stay here and talk to the prosecutor and quit playing with her tongue ring and clicking it at me or I am going to reach out and yank it from her mouth" in my voice.
2 comments:
I am sure you harbour no illusions that in the "stupid questions " department commercial clients are just as bad. But I'm just leaving this comment to emphasise the point really.
They also give stupid answers;
Judge to witness "so what you are really saying is that you didn't do as good a standard of work as you normally do on this particular occasion."
Witness/client to judge (debt claim for invoice for the job thus referred to) "well yeah, it was a bit of a bodge job!"
*sound of advocates head hitting desk really quite hard*
I've also had clients ask me something along the lines of, "This case is b.s., it's totally going to be thrown out. Do I still have to show up on the next date?"
It's so hard not to be sarcastic in response. "Don't you think that every person in this courtroom thinks their case is b.s.? Do you think the judge will throw it out when you don't show up after he told you to?"
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