I was a potential juror for a burglery case. After waiting several hours, the judge came into the room and told us the story of Maurice, the burgler.
One night, Maurice and “his buddy” decided to go to a closed Marie Callender’s restaurant. They thought it would be okay to help themselves to the food carts left in the dumpter shed. After all, the restaurant has been closed since last winter and they were just sitting there, ripe for the picking.
As Maurice and his buddy were loading the carts into his truck, the police showed up. Maurice and his buddy were arrested and charged with burglery.
About a month ago, Maurice made his appearance in court. His lawyer entered a plea of guilty. The judge said he asked Maurice if he did the crime and Maurice said it wasn’t a crime—the carts had been abandoned. The judge refused to accept the guilty plea and set a trial date for October 12th. Yesterday.
Maurice decided, after being in jail since the first hearing, he was indeed guilty of stealing the food carts. The judge asked if he was sure and Maurice said he had a funny feeling while driving to Marie Callender’s. The funny feeling was maybe we shouldn’t do this… The judge accepted the guilty plea, which he said he normally doesn’t do on the day of a trial. But since Maurice didn’t get away with his abandoned Marie Callender’s food carts and it was his first offense, the judge agreed to accept the plea.
The judge told us we were free to go home, to work, or to the Colorado Mills outlet mall to look for sales. I thought about calling hubby and telling him I was under court-order to go shopping, but I decided to go home.
He didn’t tell us where Maurice was going.
