Wednesday afternoon while I was on my bike ride got a phone call from the department witness co-ordinater asking if I was available to go to court Thursday morning.  I told him yes.  I appeared this morning on what is called a roll & compare.  This occurs when I person is to be sentenced after a trial and has prior convictions which will enhance his sentence.  The court obtains a prison record for each conviction and the record includes a set of booking fingerprints of the suspect.  My job is to go to court and take the suspect's fingerprints and compare them to the booking fingerprints in the prison records. 

What happens quite often is that the suspect admits that the prior convictions are his and I don't  have to do anything.  That is what happened this morning.  While waiting around to see what was going to happen, I wrote this poem.

 Waiting

Rushing so I won't be late,
Now I'm forced to sit and wait.
Nothing new I'm sad to say,
Wish there was another way.

Wish I may, wish I might,
The DA told me to just sit tight.
Waiting for the defense attorney,
To bring an end to another journey.

The defendant's here, so is the judge,
I won't be needed today.  Oh fudge!
Another wasted trip for me,
But the bad guy got strike three.

Ken Ferguson