Judge, Jury, and Executioner

Admissions Hearing, Docket No. 101-23-456
The People v. Miguel Hakim de la Santisima Trinidad

*METAL CLANGING SOUND*

Prosecutor: Judge, as you can clearly see, this applicant is unworthy of entrance into law school. His LSAT score is mediocre, and although his GPA is fairly high, he got his degree from a backwater hick college with a lackluster academic record and the worst football team this side of the Mississippi! Even the Defendant himself admits that his bachelor's degree is functionally useless.

Me: It was a pretty shitty school. I mean, Dr. Phil went there...

Prosecutor: I rest my case! Given these circumstances, it is obvious that the Defendant would not be a good law student. His motion for admission should and must be denied.

Defense: Your Honor, the Prosecution's objections are as strained and threadbare as William Shatner's girdle. There is not an applicant out there more capable at succeeding in law school than my client. First of all, the Eagles and Mean Joe Green also went to my client's school. Second of all, for the past five months, he has been volunteering in the trenches of immigration law, fighting for Lah RAH-zuh...

Me: (angrily) La RAZA

Defense: See? Fluent in Spanish. And underprivileged! His mom is Mexican. He grew up fifteen minutes from a bloody civil war in Mexico!

Prosecutor: Judge, I mean, REALLY. This is a grade-A charade. While the Applicant's unpaid community service work is commendable, he's about as Mexican as Lou Dobbs, and his mom has a master's degree. How underprivileged. Who does he think he's fooling with that goatee? And Your Honor, he's LAZY.

Defense: Are you calling my client a lazy Mexican?

Judge: You're on thin ice, Counselor.

Prosecutor: But just look at that paunch! He's tried to lose that countless times and he fails. We cannot invest our time in flabby, fatassed failures when we can place people with commitment AND rock-hard abs into the seats of this fair institution.

Me: ...(looks down at stomach with shame)

Defense: Your Honor, my client's failures can be explained away by medical conditions. He dropped out of music school because of a nerve-damaged hand, and he can't go to the gym because he's having pains of a manly nature. Let me ask you -- would a lazy person spend a summer learning Arabic in North Africa? Judge, admission into that program was more selective than admission to Harvard University! Judge, would a lazy person work two jobs and go to school full-time? Would a lazy person graduate from college in THREE years? Just look at these letters of recommendation. Hard-working. Dedicated. Mature. Funny. And he's a MEXICAN.

Prosecutor: Your Honor, all of Mr. Johnson's fancy arguments are moot. The Defendant himself doesn't even know if he wants to go to law school.

Judge: Is this true?

Me: (little boy voice)...I wanna go....

Judge: Young man, if the Prosecutor is right, then it doesn't matter how qualified or un-qualified you are. If you do not know if you want to go to law school, then you do not belong in law school. So before I render my decision, I have to ask: do you want to go to law school?

Me: ...