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As a Seattle criminal defense attorney, I have a certain set of rules that I give to my clients every time we have a pending court date. You know, they're things like: dress like you were going to church (or somewhere nice – basically no jean shorts or cut off t-shirts); no sunglasses; take a shower and brush your teeth; no hats; no shirts that call for the overthrow of the government; nothing with a marijuana leaf or a skull on it; and arrive at least five minutes early. I thought I had it all down until today. Today, I learned that I have to add another rule to my usual rundown – leave your drug paraphernalia at home.

Like most other rules, you learn to tell people these rules because someone has done something that you thought no rational human being would do. And since someone actually did do it, you now have evidence that it could happen, and it is important enough to keep it from happening again that you tell all of your criminal clients who are heading into court about it, no matter how dumb it sounds. This last rule, then, as you might expect, was learned the hard way, though thankfully not by a client of mine. Though now that I've seen it, I'll have to tell everyone just to make sure it doesn't happen again.

What happened was pretty simple really. I was going to court this morning for a pretrial hearing (if you are not a Seattle criminal defense lawyer, this is a procedural hearing in a criminal case) on a malicious mischief (destruction of property) charge. It wasn't going to be very interesting or entertaining, so I was in normal attorney mode (versus trial attorney mode, which is much more attuned to the outside world and edgy).

I strolled into the courthouse about 9:00 a.m. and, as with all of the courthouses in Seattle, got ready to go through security, which consists of an old lady or man sitting at a table and a metal detector. But, as I approached security I sensed something wasn't right. There was a girl in front of me, the only thing between me and my courtroom, and she was sobbing and freaking out a little bit. I see this all the time so I thought she was just freaked out about her court hearing. Then, I look over and see a real life sheriff's deputy writing something on a post-it note. And then I see the deputy slap the post it note on something and take it away. What was that something? You guessed it, a glass marijuana pipe!

Now, the only reason I knew this was a marijuana pipe was because of my time as a criminal attorney. Otherwise I would have had no idea. But the girl certainly knew she was in trouble (and facing a likely possession of drug paraphernalia charge) and she was freaking out saying "I had no idea that was in my bag," "Someone must have put that in there without me knowing," and things of that nature. And then the sheriff's deputy sent her into her court hearing, where she was going to have to explain to the judge how her deferred sentence so long she stays out of trouble is already over.

Bottom line, if you are going to court, dress nice, smell nice, and don't bring your drug pipe, gun, drugs, or anything else illegal in with you. At least don't keep it in your purse, which is looked through every time you go to court.

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