Gone courting

The Minutemen sued to get into the Patriots Day parade. The city of Anaheim sued over the Angels’ name. And the people who bought the book “A Million Little Pieces” under the impression that it was nonfiction want their money back.

These legal conflicts may seem trivial, and in the first case, downright irritating, but at least they play out in court instead of on a more literal battlefield, so in that sense I guess they’re three small victories for Western civilization.

Lately I’ve been dropping by the courthouse off Crown Valley Road about once a month, accompanying a friend who got a little jammed up, and it’s given me a chance to see the system at work. I’ve seen several people appear before the bench, mostly for probation violations or failure to pay fines. I’m impressed with the efficiency of the lawyers, the bailiffs and the judges. At the same time, I’m glad they’re not being efficient with me.

It can be a long day. There are usually a lot of cases on the calendar.

Everyone cited is expected to show up at 8:30 a.m., and everyone does, except the judge. So we all sit and wait, purgatory-style. After awhile, my friend says, you feel like pleading guilty just to have somewhere to go.

But once the judge arrives, everything speeds up -- most cases are continued or decided in about a minute and a half, and occasionally the decision is to have someone led away in handcuffs.

The judges I’ve seen seem fair-minded, but it must be unsettling to have your immediate future depend on a stranger in robes. You can’t know his mood.

Maybe somebody just scratched his car. Maybe somebody who looks just like you just scratched his car.

The Minutemen and the city of Anaheim didn’t find themselves in this position, of course. Most of them didn’t even have to appear, and as plaintiffs they wouldn’t have had to stand up before the judge anyway.

With any luck, you’ll never have to either. But if you ever do, my friend says there’s a little notice posted on the rostrum with some tips on court protocol. You know -- keep your hands out of your pockets, the preferred form of address is “Sir” or “Your Honor,” that kind of thing.

You’d think such advice would go without posting, but we heard one guy address the judge as “‘Tsup?” and it didn’t seem to go over as well as “Your Honor” would have. So ... just a heads-up.

My friend’s case is moving along, slowly; it’s been a bit of an ordeal.