Guilty as hell

. . . which we all knew. But it's sure nice to have a judge say it. I just got home from work (it's 9:30 p.m.), and my husband wants to go to sleep already, poor exhausted guy, so I'm going to keep this as short as I can while providing a few details.

The driver came in late, literally as the judge was calling his name as one of the names to be given bench warrants for not appearing. The driver, AC, refused to look me or my husband in the eye the entire time we were in there.

Let's see. The short version. The solicitor--who had told us she'd meet with us at 1:30, but did not--called my husband and AC back to a separate room. I could not be in there. Apparently AC announced he would like to plead no lo, as he hadn't realized he could plead that previously since he had pled no lo to something else in the last four years. What he had pled no lo on was a different offense, so he could plead it again . . . potentially. But my husband told the attorney he did not want AC to be allowed to plead no lo. She asked why, and he showed her photos of what his body and face looked like in the hospital while he described his injuries. I had had him blow these photos up to 8x10" for effect, and it worked. She refused to agree to the no lo plea.

AC did not have representation (our attorney for the civil matter said, "What a dumbass."), and his one question of my husband during cross-examination was, "Uh, did you look both ways before you crossed the street?" This is an especially funny question given that the street my husband was hit on is a one-way street. My husband managed to just say simply, "Yes," and with that one word convey what, yes, a dumbass this guy was.

So . . . AC's defense was . . . basically non-existent. "There were cars parked on both sides of the street, your honor." Yes, he said, my husband was in the crosswalk. Yes, he said, he did hit my husband.

Well, there you go. That's all you need in the state of GA. The rest is just details.

The prosecutor asked that my husband be allowed to give a victim's statement, and he did. He described his injuries, said he'd had to be in Grady Hospital for 10 days and that he imagined the court might understand what that meant, told them his wife had experienced a lot of mental anguish as she dealt with what happened, informed them his family had had to travel from VA to help care for him. He told the judge he is still in PT and will be until his strength has improved.

The judge then, I kid you not, must have said some variety of, "You're lucky this guy didn't die," and "It's amazing this isn't being tried in Superior Court. You have permanently injured this man" a dozen times.

He put off sentencing until he could get AC's driving record.

When he got the driving record a few minutes later, he asked the solicitor what punishment she wanted. She said, "A $500 fine and driving school." My husband and I both thought, That's all? The judge asked AC what AC thought of that. "Well, your honor, I'd be happy to go to driving school."

"Yeah, I bet you would," the judge replied. "But you're going to do a lot more than that."

The thing is, AC was in a car accident two months before he hit my husband. Then he hit my husband. Then he got a ticket for making an illegal left-hand turn NINE DAYS LATER. That combination really grated on the judge.

So the judge informed AC that he would have his license suspended for three months, would do 40 hours community service, would pay $1500 in fines and fees, would attend driving school to get his license back after three months, and--this is the kicker--that he would be on probation until November 19 of this year ("a date that is not a coincidence, I would like to point out," he said--the anniversary of the accident) , at which time, if the judge finds that AC has gotten any vehicle-related violations of any sort between now and then, AC will go to jail. "And now," the judge concluded, "you can go sit on the front row for a while. You are going to need to call someone to pick you up, because you don't have a driver's license anymore."

And that--that is awesome.

My husband says that if at any point AC had said to him, "You know, I just want you to know I'm really sorry for what I did. It really weighs on me," my husband would have seriously considered supporting the no lo plea. But AC never spoke to him and never looked at him. He showed no remorse. So he gets what he deserves.

And seriously? Seriously, when we left the courtroom, one of the other guys who had been in there was with us took the elevator with us. "That guy doesn't need to be allowed to drive nothin'," he said of AC. "He don't even need to be driving a bicycle!"