The oldest person I represented in criminal court was 93.
He and his wife had an argument, so she locked him out of the house. He says that he then gave her a bouquet of flowers and a card. His wife said that he gave her dead flowers and a card calling her a bitch.
The police said that they were worried about him freezing to death in the Canadian winter while sleeping in his truck, so they arrested him and sent him to the nut house for being a danger to himself.
The doc found him to be competent and released him, so he went back to sleeping in his truck. By this time the police had interviewed his wife to see why she was making him sleep in his truck, so when they heard about the dead flowers and hurtful card, they arrested him for assault and threw him in the district jail (a distinctly overheated building) while waiting to make bail.
That’s when I came across him and had him released pending trial. I called the wife, who was very surprised to learn that her husband had been tossed in the can and was up on charges. She thought that the police had simply taken him in and would be putting him in a retirement home. It turns out that she was pissed at him because he pissed himself at night in bed while asleep.
The prosecutor figured that 93 was a typo, and that he was 39, so she followed the government’s policy to prosecute and matters in which domestic assault was alleged even if the spouse did not which for the authorities to proceed with the prosecution. Once I pointed out his age, she still continued on with the prosecution, telling me that he was a danger to his wife. Now I realize that waking up in someone else’s cold piss is mighty uncomfortable, and that being called a bitch for sending the pisser to sleep in his truck is not nice, but how any of that deserved a full blown prosecution for assault was beyond me.
It was also beyond the judge, who himself spent quite a bit of time sleeping in the cold in his truck during the late fall hunting season, and who quite enjoyed chatting with my client. The crown relented.
My client moved to a retirement home a day’s drive away. I began to receive calls from that retirement home’s manager complaining that he was pissing himself in bed at night. I advised my client to wear Depends. He refused. I advised my client to move into a care home that could provide for his needs. He refused. So I advised him to piss proudly, to not let the bastards get him down, and to carry my card with him in case of further arrest. He liked that.
I have not heard from him since, so for all I know, he may no longer be with us. I just hope that he found a situation that afforded him some dignity, for what it all came down to – the sleeping in the truck in the winter, the psych evaluation, the incarceration, the prosecution – was that his nocturnal incontinence humiliated him, and he would rather do anything than have anyone know about it. All he wanted was to preserve his dignity.
I hope the people in the system are a little more understanding when it comes my time.