Andrew Q Gordon

Thanks Dave, Yes, I doubt Jordan is prepared for the rest of his life. County jail is nothing like Prison time, nothing. And while the state correction institutes do their best to not send a lamb into a lion's den, the truth is his crime wouldn't qualify him for less than a medium to maximum security facility. He's definitely in for a rough 'ride'. Thanks for reading and for taking the time to always leave me some feedback.

Have a fabulous birthday, my dear, full of fun and memorable times. - if they're really memorable, maybe post a picture or two?

Conner, Glad to see that I didn't disappoint you, I know you and several others were keenly interested in how this unfolded. As always, thanks for reading and thanks for making sure to let me know what you were thinking. Andy

Hey Dan,thanks for the review. Glad to see you enjoyed it. I won't say that all verdicts go in this manner, but it has been my experience that goes something like I wrote. Good to see that people who are not familiar with courtrooms could 'see' the verdict unfolding. I tried to make it as visual as possible. Thanks again for all encouragement while I wrote this.

Hey Kevin, in my experience, even when you win a case like this satisfaction isn't complete. Justice served can only ease but so much. As I said in my forum, one has to expect that Jordan is going to do a substantial amount of time more than Warren Berryman and he got 25 years. Berryman pled guilty, which at least at the time, indicated he had some remorse and that he took responsibility for his actions. Jordan did neither. I would imagine an attorney in in Rankin's position would be telling his client and his family at the sentence is going to be extremely harsh so I doubt it will come as a surprise when he gets slammed by the judge at sentencing. Thanks for reading and for all the encouragement along the way.

Hey Wayne,in my experience, there is no such thing as I can't lose Jury trial. a case like this, anything less than guilty would be a loss for the prosecutor, and for the victim. As much as you and others would like to see Hank and Rebecca Colmar pay for the sins of their little angel Jordan, there would be no cause of action for Peter and his family against the parents of an adult defendant. You and everyone else will have to be satisfied with the knowledge that Rebecca Colmar's little angel is going to spend the rest of her life in jail. Thanks for reading and for all the reviews.

Thanks Benji, Yeah you won't be seeing more legal stuff on this - too busy with too many other things. Time to move on from this plot line. BUT if I were to sum up what happens: Peter doesn't sue - none of the defendants will be out of jail anytime soon - you have to expect Jordan is gonna get way more than Berimen who plead guilty and got 25 years so he'll gonna do a bit more - can't really sue the families so that leaves the school and you'd need to show they knew or should have known these 6 were likely to do this and did nothing to prevent it. So no civil suit was ever filed. Hank Colmar was arrested tried and convicted of tax fraud/evasion. Rebecca ended up moving in with her daughter who got married, had a couple kids and lived on the wrong side of town. She and Barbara never spoke again. Portman got half what Berimen got, so 12.5 years, tough but he is the one who hit Peter with the bat. He would have gotten 30+ years without the cooperation. Berimen was charged, tried and convicted of Perjury. He recieved 2.5-5 years - the max but worse for him it will affect his release in 27.5 years. In PA you always get twice the minimum as a max sentence. 25-50 means you're eligible for release but you can be kept for the full 50 years. Lying on the stand is not going to impress the parole board when he shows up. In my mind, the Board will not release him first go round just because he lied. So figure he'll end up being released in 30 years. Martin becomes D.A. with the support of Daniel Hember and the money raised by Ray Henry, and Royce Tellerman. - Mary of course becomes his First Assistant - i.e the #2 in the office. Whew, there you go. No mention of the boys because -well I do have a few stories in mind for them one involving them directly the other involving others in their universe where they pop in from time to time.

Okay so here is how bond works - or at least in the jurisdictions I've worked in. There are several kinds of bond. In Pa for instance we had: Own Recognizance - basically you promise to come to court but if not you owe whatever the bond was set at - in theory at least, 10%, meaning if you or a family member posted 10% of the bond you got out, but if you skipped out, you lose the 10% automatically and the rest you would again in theory because I've never seen a judge say, okay 10% forfeited, you're locked up without bond and oh yeah, you owe the remaining 90%- but I'm sure it's happened.; Full bond. On these cases, you could, if you or your family had the money, post the full amount yourself, or you could find a bondsman to post it. If you hire a bail bondsman, you pay them whatever they want, 10, 20, 20 percent and you NEVER get that money back. No matter what. If you skip out the bond is forfeited, but the courts generally give the bondsman time to drag the defendant in kicking and screaming so they get their bond back. In this instance, because he made all court dates, the Judge didn't forfeit the bond - meaning the money goes back to whence it came - all he did was revoke the right to be on bond. If he'd wanted to keep the money - and he could have earlier when Jordan violated the stay away conditions, he'd need to say, bond forfeited in his ruling. Can't say that is how it works everywhere, but that is generally how's it's handled. Does that help?

What's naff,??

Chapter 7: Verdict is posted. So this is it, the end of the trial. Only an epilogue left to go. Read it and weep or not. Reviews now that this is over are welcome. Andy

Martin tried to focus on the mountain of work that had piled up during the trial. Same as always; trials caused a backlog. One way or the other, he'd have time to catch up soon. Pushing aside the deliberating jury, he began assigning new cases. No matter how busy he was, he never let this part of his job go more than a couple of days; it wouldn't be fair to the assistants to get them two weeks late. Thankfully, nothing serious came in that would need his attention. After this, he wante

Not so my dear, YOU deserve all you get and more. You are a GA treasure that more people should appreciate.

Seriously funny, not real, but funny all the same, but then nothing was as funny as Ms. Teen South Carolina in 2007. Evidently she parlayed into a spot on the Amazing Race where she was ridiculed for being . . . . you guessed it . . . . stupid. LOL

Well my forum has officially passed 1000 posts. Woo Hoo Q'topolis, you go!. Granted that is small potatoes compared to the behemoths that are the forums of CJames, DomLuka, Mark Arbour, DK or Comicality but still I feel a wee bit of pride and a whole lot of gratitude for everyone who's stopped by and participated. So THANK YOU!!!! You all know who you are.

Dave. Yes you are correct there is nothing about any of the above, but all three will be making their presence and/or Purpose felt rather soon. I'm getting to the parts where they can almost write themselves as I've had this part of the story in my head forever. Now I just need to get it down. Thanks for sticking with me. Andy

So I have to ask what are mLitary Marches? that's what the first 30 seconds says. I'm not nominating anyone, I feel we should have a gay republic instead, sorta like Athens was back in Socrates' time. It was a republic and it was very gay. We can all move to greece and toss out the dysfunctional government they have and start over.

Billy, With the exception of my pet peeve no no - I'm this tall, this build, this color hair - this was a good start, you've got the players set out, the hint of the conflict and more than enough tension to keep us going. The flash forward worked, so now we need you to catch back up.

Welcome L-EX. Enjoy you time and we look forward to seeing your work. If you need help, just ask, someone probably knows the answer

Sadly no, there is not time to right much in this story. That doesn't mean things can't change in the future, just that the trial story only has a few days left in it's time line. don't forget too that Peter is a Senior now, and will look for work when he graduates. His days of teaching were probably going to end soon anyway. Not to say it doesn't suck to have it taken away, but this job wasn't going to be his full time career. Next chapter will be up soon, promise.

How come no one offered to give me a baby before I paid all this money to the surrogate?

Dave, I think if I gave her candy they Child Protective Service people would be out to the house. I was just kidding. I took her to a couple houses but nothing too much it was cold and it was a hassle taking off her coat to show folks her costume. They offered us - me - candy, but funny thing about my neck of the neighborhood - we get VERY few trick or treaters for a combination of reasons. Mostly I used to think it was because the house have bigger yards than down the hill so there are fewer houses per 100 feet. Also our houses are set back more so there is more walking involved to get to and from the door to the street. So mainly we get the kids who are coming down the hill to get to the good neighborhoods. The other reason I'm finding is we are the last house on the block that is giving out candy - The 3 houses below us are: Empty for 20 years, oddly missing yesterday, and too cheap to give out candy - that's our immediate neighbors. On the other side is: The freakish Psychics professor who probably gives our model of hydrogen atoms, the college rental house, the grumpy older guy who is always working in his yard but never speaks to anyone,and the retired Univ Prof who is already in Florida. SO no one is giving out candy ANYWAY - which of course could be a factor of so few come so why bother, but still. That was a long way of saying we have GOBS of candy left and one of the neighbors sent us a goodie basket with all kinds of cookies and brownies and bisoctti and what not along with some baby things for Little Q so the cup doth overfloweth with sweets in our house right now. Anyway hungry? As for writing, I'm kinda the same as you, I find it hard to back fill things. What basically happened was 23 needed to be slit up and something more add before I got to 24. So insert new 24 move 24 - 25 and viola, problem solved - kinda. Okay gonna use the calm to get a few things done.

For those interested - here's an update. the next chapter is done as is 23. 23 is being reviewed, so once that is back, I'll post 22. I actually have most of chapter 25 written but very little of chapter 24 - Anyta and I discussed things and it seems that I jumped the gun a bit and needed to put in something else first. So that is what I'm working on now - doing chapter 24. I know posting is erratic and it will continue to be that way, but rest assured it WILL be completed. Promise. Once I finish this, I doubt I'll venture off into this genre anytime soon. At least not for a full length story. Okay, back to work - err taking care of the wee little one - she's being a bit fussy after we let her eat her halloween candy - hope she doesn't keep us up all night

Getting close to the end here. Chapter 7 - Verdict is done and Nephy approved. That means Sunday I'll post the next to last chapter. The epilogue will be two weeks after that - Baby Q willing. For those who can't wait, I'll reveal the verdict in the spoiler below. Don't read it if you're gonna get mad at me. There. Now to finish the epilogue and put this and the saga of Jason and Peter to rest. Andy

Well no way I can compete with THAT birthday wish, so Happy Birthday Mark, Love Q, Mike and Baby Q

The smart, snarky answer is - get a good beta/editor Not sure there is any 'good' way to 'prevent' it, other than not doing stories in different POV. I've tried what you're doing and it's near impossible for me to do. I end up going back and having to correct it, which takes a while. Now I try not to do it to avoid the issue. Andy