Taking A Stand: I’ve heard many docket excuses
I’ve been here for 13 years and I’ve heard it all when it comes to why I should keep a person’s name out of the paper.
In my line of work as crime and courts reporter, I get calls on a regular basis asking me if I can perhaps see my way into leaving a name out of the paper. These calls usually involve minor offenses on one of the general sessions dockets. Believe it or not, I never get calls asking me to leave a name out when it’s good news. Wonder why that is?
“Bobby saved a kitten from a burning building. Do you think you could see your way into not printing his name?” That’s a call I will never get even if I surpass Chuck Dodson in longevity here.
After fielding scores of calls, I’ve found there are four types of requests to leave names out of the paper – pleas for mercy, people citing personal connections, overt threats, and the most common, heaping of guilt.
Pleas for mercy are the toughest to decline because they’re folks who I believe legitimately care about their reputations or the reputations of whomever they are calling for. By the way, 80 percent of the calls I get to leave names out of the paper come from someone other than the person whose name is on the docket, usually a relative or girlfriend. However, as I tell them, if I leave that person’s name out, it wouldn’t be fair to all the others.
The people citing personal connections aren’t hard to decline.
“Remember me, you once hung out with my sister-in-law’s brother your junior year in high school,” the caller says, asking I leave out his recent DUI.
The fact the person thinks I’m such a pushover that I would omit a name solely on the basis of an arcane connection is insulting to me. I’ve run names of family and friends.
“It’s nice you called, but where were you when I was having to move furniture last summer,” I respond to the fair-weather friend.
Threats are rare actually and just serve to make me play the name higher on the docket than I normally would. Funny how no one does the opposite, and offers to bribe me. I’ve not been offered one bribe since I’ve been here. Too bad.
The guilt trip makes me the maddest because they try to pull me into their web of deceit even though they’re the ones who got themselves into trouble.
“You’re going to kill my momma,” the caller says. “She’s already sick and if she reads this, she’s just going to die. Plus, I’m going to lose my job.”
“No sir, I’m not going to kill your momma,” I respond. “You making that meth in her basement is going to kill her when you burn her house down. Besides, if she’s your momma, she already knows you’re a punk so it shouldn’t be any surprise.”
You’d be stunned how many people try to make me feel like crap for running their name, saying they were falsely accused, and then go enter a guilty plea the next day to the charges. While I refuse to leave their names out, I do normally offer to print their side of the story, but that offer is rarely accepted. Why? Because they’re guilty.
Now I’m not naive enough to believe everyone who is charged is guilty. That’s one reason, on the general sessions docket at least, we print only cases where there has been a conviction or plea. And, seeing almost all calls I get to leave names out involve general sessions cases, the folks calling are the folks who have already been convicted.
My best advice to keep your name out of the paper is simply not to commit a crime. Don’t try to blame me for doing my job when it’s your mistake. I didn’t take anybody to raise.
(Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)