And the sigh of relief...

So I did it. I will never have my first moment in front of a judge ever again. After waiting FOUR HOURS past our appointed call time, we finally got rolling, and I cross examined my first police officer. He looked young- he probably graduated high school the same year I did- and it looked this was probably his first time testifying in court, so i was kind of an extravaganza of newness up there. As my supervising attorney put it, "you all looked like two different deer in two different sets of headlights." I'm pretty sure that's not a compliment. But anyway, I got everything I needed to know from him, and one surprise bonus tidbit of useful information, and I prevented him from running his mouth and trying to say all sorts of things that would have been damaging to our case, so I'm calling it a qualified success. Even though we had to continue the motion to finish in a few weeks because several of the cops we needed to interview didn't show up, (side note: I now totally see how cases take freaking years to wind their way through the criminal justice system- this is only a motion and it's taken us almost six months to finish the damn thing,) I think we're in pretty good shape and have a good chance of winning our motion. And if we win our motion, it seems pretty likely that the state will have to dismiss its case against Client. And if that happens- well, damn, that means I will have realized a positive result on my very first case ever. I'm getting ahead of myself, I know, but hey- a girl can dream.