I spent yesterday in a Denver courtroom, blissfully beyond the reach of the brain-devouring virus that evidently has afflicted Wall Street in recent months. I was there in support of a friend, Bill S., whose seventh DUI had landed him in jail for a year.  Now he was back in court trying to get the sentence reduced, encouraged by his lawyer to think the odds were pretty good. Or so they thought. But that was before the prosecutor spoke her mind. So many times did she repeat the words “seven DUIs” that, by the time she was finished, the defense might have wished they’d stayed home.

Now, you’re probably wondering why anyone with seven DUI convictions should even be considered for leniency. But the last of them was six years ago, and Bill has been a model AA story ever since.  A fugitive from justice, he turned himself in so that he could put his legal troubles behind him. Since April, he has been on a work release program that requires a daily four-hour bus commute to and from the county jail.  With an hour's stop at AA every night, he rarely gets home before ten.

There were a dozen of his friends in the courtroom yesterday, each ready to testify that Bill is a changed man, no longer the drunken threat he once was on the highways. The judge was impressed with Bill’s impeccable record over the last six years, but in the end he deferred to the prosecutor, knocking just a few weeks off the jail sentence. There were no high-fives as we left the courtroom. I bought Bill lunch in Cherry Creek, then took him back to the county jail. He stashed a pack of cigarettes in his secret spot outside the facility. He’ll be up at 4:30 a.m. on Friday, ready for the commute but not exactly raring to go.  Still, since there was no evening commute back to the jail on Thursday, he’ll have gotten a few more hours sleep than usual.  Not a great day, but it could have been worse.