Fri Fri Fri Fri Friday in Book Four: Ichi-no-Tani 2017

Today… I got to be more busy. Hooray! Always good. Studied some stuff, drafted some stuff. Granted… it never seems to correlate properly. A solid 4 hours of work translates into 2 hours of billable work. But 4=2 is a lot better than 8=2 so I’ll take it.

Interesting Legal Problem I would love to get a good answer for:
Chinese Student. Pulled over, discovered to have a “green leafy substance in his mouth.” Is found to have zero alcohol in his system. Arresting officer believes that the Student has been driving under the influence; thus, if not alcohol, marijuana. But the evidence presented is flimsy as hell. Green leafy substance in the student’s mouth and no tox screen? EXCEPT the officer claims the Student made admissions to smoking marijuana. BUT (the catch) when they arrested the kid and brought him to the station, they needed reams of pages of Google Translate just to tell the kid his rights, his responsibilities, and everything like that. So… how was this kid able to make pre-interrogation confessions to anything when he clearly doesn’t understand the language? Ultimately… one would think that “translation issues” have been well litigated by now but.... technology always makes it tricky. I want to find cases where language barriers have affected the ability to accept statements AND I want to find cases where excessive use of a translator post-arrest were used to prove that the pre-arrest statements were inadmissible. And (if I can) find precedent for suppressing the Google Translate conversation… because seriously… Google Translate cannot be considered legally acceptable for statements that could potentially infringe upon someone’s liberty.

You know something I miss about being caught up and catching up on Prosebox?
Notes.
Granted… I’m a note whore.
But… without the interactive portions of Prosebox… without reading notes, writing notes, and engaging in conversations in that way.... PB just isn’t as cool. Which, obviously, is a way of saying PB is cool because of the people here. The people of PB make PB cool. And I just kind of miss that.

Circling back around to work and hours; though… one more way I wish my relationship with my wife involved… I don’t know. Maybe… a bit more human connection? Maybe. Not sure if that is the right word.

So granted, I haven’t seen Wife much this week. The last two nights, I stayed up until past midnight just so I could see her for an hour. AND no, that isn’t exaggeration. To be at the office between 7:30 and 9; I have to wake up between 6:00 and 7. But to see Wife when her shift ends at 10, means she’ll get home around 11 pm. So, when I leave for work… she’s asleep and dead to the world. When she comes home from work… I can either stay up (sacrificing sleep on the front end) or already be in bed. Last two nights, I’ve chosen the former. But last night? I was trying to explain that I was having an emotional reaction. That, logically, I realize that I am not going to magically have thousands of clients or know what I’m doing. I realize that. But… honestly? If your paycheck was based on commission and you only sold one or two things a day… wouldn’t you be worried? I guess… I was hoping Wife would hear me, understand my concerns, and offer me some kind of palliative like “No matter what happens, we’ll get through it.” Something. Instead, I got all the reason and rationale tossed back at me. How it makes sense that I’m performing poorly; how I can’t be expected to do well yet; that clients won’t appear just because you want them to. It was… unsatisfying.

But… at the same time… it is what I should have expected. This is not one of the many ways in which Wife has changed over the years. If given the choice, she will always chose to be hyper-rational. I know this. And it makes me wonder how many times in our relationship I have (or will) feel disappointment that Wife is who she is; as opposed to who I want her to be. That is/isn’t a dick thing to say. Every person engaged in a human relationship has wants, needs, desires, expectations, and hopes that go for themselves, their partners, and the relationship as a whole. Realizing and encountering moments of disappointment are important to determine the health of the relationship, the communication between partners, and whether the relationship can continue. That’s all I’m saying.

Just returned from investigating a case.
Google Translate is absolutely acceptable by United States Courts for communication. Technically, as I investigated this case… if you don’t speak English in this country, you are screwed. Because you don’t even have Miranda Rights anymore. Not really. If an officer reads you Miranda rights and you are mentally capable, not coerced, and old enough… it doesn’t matter if you understand the Miranda Rights or not. Am I the only one that thinks that is fucked up? Like… we made it a big deal that people arrested in the united states were afforded specific rights and protections… but if you don’t speak English or Spanish, the law basically says Fuck you!
That tracks with a lot of what I’ve felt over the last decade. Every time people would take action for Hispanic Immigrants; if the law/bill was specifically for that demographic… I would object. Because what about refugees? What about the Serbians, Croations, Kurds, Vietnamese, Korean, Sudanese, Ethiopian, and Chinese refugees and asylum seekers Iowa was once famous for welcoming? Why are they considered lesser? For that reason… I’m glad I’m here. I wish I could do more to help that demographic… but I’m glad I’m here.

Then there’s the other side. I uh… I continue to have some pretty specific issues with some of our Chinese Criminal Clients.
23 year old Chinese Student that speaks Zero English. Driving around in a 2016 Jaguar. With a mouth full of weed. And does not pull over for the police officers chasing him with their lights going and their sirens on and their spotlights on. AND I get it… from this kid’s perspective… maybe the police trying to stop him reads like some dystopian horror novel where the government is actively trying to ruin your life. BUT… I mean… still. All I see is a punk foreign kid misbehaving and acting like a rich entitled jerk. And that kind of attitude… will be VERY bad for business!