House arrest

After some confusion about how to spell Vincent’s last name, when our appointment was (it was supposed to be at the Jefferson County (KY) Hall of Justice [pictured above] at 1 p.m. today), and where Vincent’s lawyer was when they called Vincent name, Vincent, Mr. Mazzoli (pictured below), and the two of us went into a hearing room with a judge and a few other court personnel (after waiting for just about half an hour). Because this is a juvenile case, it is not public, and so there are not a bunch of people in there and one case is heard at a time. Judge Prather (sp?) wanted Vincent to be “detained” pending a real hearing date – perhaps Tuesday, April 21. Mr. Mazzoli objected, citing Vincent’s lack of previous record, having made arrangements with the school, etc., and so the judge agreed to “house arrest.”

This is more than Mr. Mazzoli was expecting, but he laid low to fight another day. He said he will speak with his partner to see whether it’s worth trying to work with the county attorney’s office to get that lessened. He did also say if Vincent did fine with that, it would be another feather in his cap – a la Wellstone – for when the case came up for real. In a way, Vincent already seemed prepared for this, in that he talked about getting a job in part so that he would be able to go back and forth from a job. However, now, Vincent is supposed to stay at home except when going to school or work (or church or doctor’s or counseling – we have to ask about that)? Vincent is not supposed to see friends anywhere – not at his home, their home, or anywhere else – even if we are there (no supervised visitation with his girlfriend). Vincent is not really even supposed to go out for a walk without us, it seems. We’ll see how this works out. We essentially get stuck enforcing this. In fact, to an extent this supposedly gives us the authority we wish we had in that Vincent can’t really go most places without us (since his school is at home anyway). We’ll see how this goes with Vincent’s state of mind. As you know, he can be rather volatile and he wasn’t in a particularly good mood about this afterwards. Unlike Wellstone, he will at least be able to talk with his girlfriend, Samantha, and other friends – and the lawyer suggested even Web cam-ing/Skype-ing with her so they could “see” each other.

Vincent also said his English portfolio has supposedly been sent to one of the alternative schools he was going to sent to, and so we have to try to track this down and retrieve so he and Jefferson County High School can get it.

We probably need to find out if Vincent is allowed to go to counseling down the street without us (probably), go with us to look for a job (Odd Lots – he said) and go there on his own without us if he gets one (probably – but this is a terrible job market and so he can’t count on getting a job applying to just one or two places), go to church youth group without us (probably), or go out to walk our dog without us (probably not). We’ll see what happens. Perhaps Vincent will even get some school work done.

-- Perry