The court in which I practiced was the county magistrate court.  In West Virginia, magistrates are popularly elected and need no legal training.  They hold sway over the bottom of the legal status pyramid in the state (underneath Circuit Court and the Supreme Court of Appeals).  West Virginia magistrates have jurisdiction over many things, but two are the most relevant here: misdemeanors and preliminary hearings.

Misdemeanors are minor crimes, defined as those which are punishable by not more than one year in jail (plus possible fines and court costs).  Magistrates hear almost anything having to do with misdemeanors, including motions, trials (usually just before a magistrate, not a jury), and sentencing (and related) matters.  Preliminary hearings are known in some other jurisdictions as probable cause hearings.  In West Virginia, a person charged with a felony is entitled to a preliminary hearing within ten days of arrest if in jail, twenty days if out on bond.  At a preliminary hearing, the State puts on sufficient evidence to show 1) that a crime has been committed and 2) that the defendant probably committed it.  If probable cause is found, the case continues (first to a grand jury and then to trial).  If there is no probable cause that the defendant is guilty, the charges are dismissed.

It was in this system that I worked for three months.  I learned a great many things.  Aside from insight about how to be a lawyer, I discovered some interesting things of interest to the public at large.

A general conception is that misdemeanors are not very serious crimes.  To be true, it was difficult to whip up a sufficient degree of righteousness when dealing with stream litters, the publicly intoxicated, and those who park in a fire lane!  However, some misdemeanors are quite serious, or at least have the potential to be.

One such situation involves domestic violence.  A day did not go by this summer when a domestic battery failed to appear on the docket at least once.  Cases varied in severity, of course.  Some of the assaults were no more than heated arguments and some of the batteries were slight and one time offenses.  Sometimes, however, a woman had been viciously brutalized by her significant other.

The most infuriating part of domestic violence (from a prosecutor's point of view, at least) is that, almost inevitably, by the time the case goes to court the victim no longer wants to prosecute.  For anyone who is familiar with the cycle of domestic abuse, this is perfectly in synch with that cycle.  However, it makes breaking that cycle very difficult when the victim either won't testify or will lie for her abuser.  The latter happened on occasion this summer, in one case necessitating the destruction of a victim on cross examination by one of my Rule 10 colleagues.  Regardless of the outcome, it was usually obvious that these cases were very serious.

The other misdemeanor that comes to mind as serious, or a least potential serious, is driving under the influence (DUI).  In West Virginia, one must be convicted twice in magistrate court of DUI before it can be prosecuted as a felony.  Granted, sometimes drunks just drive poorly and don't actually hurt anybody.  The fact is, however, that at any time, that drunk might decide to take a jaunt on a major highway, with deadly consequences.  Serious stuff, indeed.

Other charges can lead to incarceration for the defendant, which is damn serious.  My first action in court (well, in a magistrate's office, actually) was a home confinement violation hearing.  The defendant had been convicted of a misdemeanor and allowed to serve his sentence confined to his home instead of in jail.  Such folks are monitored both electronically and by spot checks from home confinement officers.  This particular defendant was drunk (a violation), ran from officers (a violation), and disconnected his home monitoring equipment (a violation).  This was the second time he had committed such violations, and thus already had his "second chance."  I put him in jail, took away what liberty he had left.  Very serious.

One thing that struggling through the misdemeanor dockets each day thought me was that the current system, at least where I worked, is woefully inefficient.  I don't think it's the fault of any one group of people, just a combination of things that gum up the works.  To begin with, each day we had over 100 cases to deal with (tho' some defendants had multiple cases).  Of those, I would say maybe one third were dealt with in some sort of final way, either a plea, trial, or dismissal for lack of facts.  The rest went various ways.  

Many times police officers (who in West Virginia are responsible for filing criminal complaints), whom the State cannot proceed without (for the most part) simply did not appear.  Some no doubt had good reasons, but I nevertheless heard of officers who would not appear in court if the date was one of their days off.  Without an officer, charges would have to be dismissed (unless it was a rare case where there actually were witnesses), but the officer has the option to re-file them within one year of the event.  No finality there.

Of course, more often, it was the accused who would not appear.  This leads to a host of problems, particularly if it's a case where there are witnesses and victims who have wasted their time to be there.  When defendants do not appear, and the State can proceed, a warrant is then issued for their arrest.  My advice to you: APPEAR IN COURT!  Occasionally, defendants will try to play a fast one, calling in sick or what have you.  One told his attorney he was in the hospital, but no hospital had ever heard of him when we called.  Book 'em, Danno! :)

The third hang-up in the system are the lawyers themselves.  Both sides take the blame for this, although defense attorneys are much worse.  In my situation, prosecutors were usually only slowed down by the fact that we didn't see a file until the day of the case, and therefore might not be quite up to speed.  Defense attorneys can screw things up in any number of ways, as I'll mention below.

The bottom line is that while there's not one easy solution, the system has got to be able to work better.  Before it kills somebody.

When I came to law school, I picture myself as a criminal defense attorney, not a prosecutor.  Still do, in a lot of ways.  What I saw this summer, however, has soured my view of them just a bit.  Let me start by saying that I dealt with many many excellent attorneys this summer, and what I'm about to say in no way reflects poorly on them.  But some defense attorneys abuse their position in the system.

A popular tactic among the less scrupulous defenders was to delay a case as long as possible.  As time dragged on, victims, witnesses, and even officers are less likely to show up again and again.  The magistrate system doesn't help.  Unlike circuit court judges, magistrates are not assigned cases, therefore things tend to get passed around from one to another and no one gets sick of dealing with a particular case.  This is about to change, thankfully.

Methods of delay vary from counsel to counsel.  A very popular refrain was "I just got the case", which could be a very good reason to continue it.  This, of course, neglects the fact that 1) most misdemeanors, even if serious, aren't that complicated and 2) we didn't have our file for any longer, so everyone's on equal grounds.  What most infuriates me, however, is that while defense counsel would routinely win a continuance in such a way, any such request from prosecutors is met with bitter resistance.

Defenders could also paralyze magistrate court because of its lowly status in the judicial totem poll.  Any sort of hearing in any other kind of court was grounds to keep magistrates, prosecutors, witnesses, and even clients waiting for hours.  Rank does have its privileges, I guess.

Defenders were also very fond of trying to continue cases where their client did not show up.  This usually didn't work, but it still is damn frustrating, particularly when the first words out of their mouths if an officer or victim doesn't appear is "move for dismissal."  I experienced the absolute height of this tactic once while handling preliminary hearings.  For a scheduled 1:30 hearing, neither the defendant nor his lawyer appeared.  By 2:00, a warrant was already issued for the defendant's arrest for failure to appear.  About a half hour later, in sprints the attorney, with no good excuse as to where he was.  As to his client, however, he told him not to show up, for some stupid reason.  Wrong answer, smart ass!

Finally, some defenders were just plain mean, and when they saw we Rule 10s surely smelled fresh blood in the water.  I don't how many times defenders mislead us or absolutely bullshitted us.  On more than on occasion a defense attorney actually made up law to try an win an argument, assuming we would not notice!  I don't care what the canons say about "zealous advocacy", that goes too far.

Of course the worst part of all these abuses is that nothing was ever done to put a stop to them.

Without a doubt, the absolute scourge of the magistrate court dockets where I worked was the worthless check: a misdemeanor crime committed by someone who writes a check they can't really cash.  Sometimes, an entire docket (36 cases!) would be full of worthless checks.  This is not fraud, nor is it a form of counterfeit.  It is simply a default on a contractual promise.  As such, it has no place in the criminal justice system.  

In the end, all a criminal prosecution gets the victim (merchant) is restitution, which could have been obtained through a civil suit.  Of course, it saves the merchant the cost of hiring its own lawyer and suing the deadbeat bastard.  But I'm not going to go to the cops about the guy I just ought a King Crimson video from if he doesn't fulfill his end of the deal, I'm going to sue!  Which is what every merchant should do.  Getting worthless checks out of the magistrate system would do everyone a world of good.

Finally, a little bit of free advice: you can't beat a speeding ticket.  Sorry to burst your bubble, but you cannot talk your way out of a ticket in court.  Trust me.  I saw many many motorists go to their dooms under the surgical questioning of a prosecutor.  Save everybody the time and pay the damn ticket. :)