"Retention"
by CritterKeeper
Darien was grinning from ear to ear as he hopped into the van beside his partner.
"Are you through?" Hobbes asked in a bored voice. "Can we go now?"
"Sure you don't want to go in yourself?"
"I took care of my duty as a citizen this morning, thank you very much."
"Yeah, well you don't seem to enthusiastic about it."
Hobbes snorted. "Personally, I wouldn't have expected you to be this enthusiastic!"
"You don't appreciate all your rights until you've had them take away, you know? I mean, until the Agency cleaned up my record, I was a convicted felon. I wasn't even allowed to register to vote. It feels really good to be able to be a part of society again."
Darien grinned to himself, practically bouncing in his seat.
"Besides, there was one little issue I really wanted to have a voice in this time around."
"You're kidding, right? I mean, this is April, not November! There was nothing on that ballot except a couple local primaries and a school funding referendum."
"And judicial retention." The twinkle in Darien's eye was unmistakable.
"What, you mean all those names on the back pages? I don't know how anyone's supposed to know anything about those guys. I just skip that part."
"Well, in this case, there was one particular judge on the list that I definitely was glad to have a say about."
Darien could still remember Judge John Beale, sitting so smugly on his bench, nearly giving Darien a heart attack. "Death by lethal injection," he had pronounced, pausing for an eternity before continuing, "sadly not being an option...."
Any judge with that twisted a sense of humor, who would do that to a defendant, didn't deserve to keep his seat. And Darien happened to have heard that his retention vote was expected to be close this year.
Every vote counted. And revenge was sweet.
by CritterKeeper
Darien was grinning from ear to ear as he hopped into the van beside his partner.
"Are you through?" Hobbes asked in a bored voice. "Can we go now?"
"Sure you don't want to go in yourself?"
"I took care of my duty as a citizen this morning, thank you very much."
"Yeah, well you don't seem to enthusiastic about it."
Hobbes snorted. "Personally, I wouldn't have expected you to be this enthusiastic!"
"You don't appreciate all your rights until you've had them take away, you know? I mean, until the Agency cleaned up my record, I was a convicted felon. I wasn't even allowed to register to vote. It feels really good to be able to be a part of society again."
Darien grinned to himself, practically bouncing in his seat.
"Besides, there was one little issue I really wanted to have a voice in this time around."
"You're kidding, right? I mean, this is April, not November! There was nothing on that ballot except a couple local primaries and a school funding referendum."
"And judicial retention." The twinkle in Darien's eye was unmistakable.
"What, you mean all those names on the back pages? I don't know how anyone's supposed to know anything about those guys. I just skip that part."
"Well, in this case, there was one particular judge on the list that I definitely was glad to have a say about."
Darien could still remember Judge John Beale, sitting so smugly on his bench, nearly giving Darien a heart attack. "Death by lethal injection," he had pronounced, pausing for an eternity before continuing, "sadly not being an option...."
Any judge with that twisted a sense of humor, who would do that to a defendant, didn't deserve to keep his seat. And Darien happened to have heard that his retention vote was expected to be close this year.
Every vote counted. And revenge was sweet.
