with the prosecutor to try and get some type of agreement that gets this whole thing disposed of. the prosecutor was originally recommending 120 days locked up listen to what i m telling you. here s what she s agreed to do. i think this is what we should do. you re charged with two things, possession of marijuana and resisting arrest. you admit the allegations of one, they ll dismiss the other and then we can go in there and we can argue to the court whether you should be released for time served. they all want me to admit to something i didn t even do. just listen to what i m saying. i m trying to get an agreement for you that gets you out of here. you admit to one or the other.
crazy up in this place. it s okay. i ll see you at 1:30, all right? you re going to be all right. i ll be here all day every day. i love you. i love you too. hang in there. i certainly understand why the court did what it did. there s not a solid support structure in place where this mother says i m going to take care of this problem. and he s not going to be back again. while i certainly was advocating for him to go home and would have liked to have seen that, i understand the court s decision. with so much testimony pushing against morris release, the judge decides he should remain locked up until his next court hearing. rodrick, on the other hand, is coming to court with his own cheering section. but will it be enough to sway judge bonaventura? he actually asked me to stay on probation throughout the summer until his 18th birthday at his last hearing because he felt the extra supervision from myself would really help him get through the summer to ensure that he would be
hey, morris, how are you? don ruck, i ll be your lawyer for today. 17-year-old morris is locked up for possession of marijuana and more importantly for failing to appear at a prior court hearing. before he enters the courtroom to face the judge he meets with his court-appointed attorney, don ruck. today s hearing the court is going to want to hear a little bit about what happened. and make a decision whether or not to release you today. what do you want to have happen. i want to get released. okay. did you test positive for marijuana when you came in? you did. yeah. all right. the court s going to ask you why you were using marijuana. do you know how you d answer that? yeah, i would tell them i was in a car. they were smoking marijuana. one of the things i know is the probation department is recommending that you stay locked up. all right? we have our work cut out for us. the difficult challenge as a public defender for a child is distinguishing between what s in th
i m going to object to that. he answered the question. the question the court asked, would he pass a drug test. not did he use marijuana. i m going to sustain the objection. no further questions, judge. i have a couple questions for rod. you had tattoos rehe moved, didn t you? yeah. what kind of tattoos were they? i had gang tattoos off a scripture on my arm. i knew i was going to do better in life. that s why i removed the gang tattoos because i ain t proud of that life no more. because you know the gang, it s not here helping me right now. okay. is there anything else you want to tell me today. regardless of if i go home today or two weeks from now, when i get out, i m going to go to school and i m still going to be this positive person i became. because i like the person that i became. there s a whole bunch of stuff i could say to you today, rod. i know it was huge for you to remove the gang tattoo which speaks volumes to me after doing this job for 26 years, i don
you don t want to the admit to marijuana, deny that, they ll dismiss it, you admit to resisting arrest. rodrick and his mother and attorney head off to court. you never know till somebody walks into court and you know and faces the judge how they re going to react or what they re going to say. okay. whatever decision rodrick makes in the next five minutes, it will likely feat the direction of his entire future. oh, god. mr. brown, you ve heard all the testimony today about what people think should happen to you. what do you want to have happen? i understand i resisted law enforcement. and me being back in that room for two weeks, that really got to me. i know i tested like positive for marijuana but that s something i did like back in july. and i thought i was going to be clean by the time i came to court. i know some people might say using a little bit of marijuana isn t like shooting somebody but at the same time, do you understand the significance of that one use of