Rosie is a very special dog. She is the first judicially approved courtroom dog in the State of New York. Like any assistance dogs, part of Rosie’s duties are silent companionship during difficult times. Rosie works in the court system in New York, where this past June she sat beside a fifteen year old girl in the witness stand. Rosie’s soft coat and sympathetic gaze no doubt provided much needed comfort to the girl, who Duchess County Court judge Stephen L. Greller described as being traumatized and facing a defendant who Judge Greller described as threatening. Going on a 1994 New York appeals court ruling that allowed for a teddy bear to accompany a child witness, Judge Greller allowed Rosie to sit with the young teen as she testified.

The defense for the trial has now submitted written arguments that Rosie “infected the trial with such unfairness”, stating that the defendant’s constitutional rights were violated by the presence of the Golden Retriever. In a New York Times article on the incident, the defense lawyers objection to Rosie raise questions as to how the jury was to know if Rosie was comforting the young girl as she confronted a guilty defendant, or if the dog were responding to the stress of lying under oath. One defense lawyer raising the further point that he was unable to cross-examine Rosie.

The case was Rosie’s first court appearance and ended in a guilty judgement in June, the defendant sentenced to 25 years to life for the rape and impregnation of his 15 year old daughter. Since June, Rosie was part of a second case where she provided companionship to two girls, ages 5 and 11, who’s mother had been murdered. The defendant plead guilty to the killing, when, according to his lawyer, it became clear that the children were going to testify.

The Times article also brings up a case of a developmentally disabled man in his late 50′s who was aided by another courtroom dog in testifying against a man that tried to steal from him. The dog in that case, a Labrador retriever, has made over 50 appearances in court. The dog provided companionship to the man in a situation where he felt completely alone save for the comforting Labrador.

Dogs have been proven to provide comfort. They do not judge people, they do not have any of the judgmental opinions that a person might think other people might feel toward something that is said. They keep secrets whispered to them with unparallelled mastery.  And they have an ability to make people feel more confident in themselves, simply by the silent gentle aura of their own strength supporting the person who reaches out to thread their fingers into the dog’s soft coat.

I think that legal assistance dogs for witnesses is a great idea, most especially when it comes to traumatized children, and would love to hear anyone else’s perspective on dogs in the witness stand.

I was going to buy my dad some of those electronic cigarettes things, but now I am glad I decided not to. There was something on the news a little while ago about how the things that were tested by the FDA had been shown to contain cancer-causing ingredients.

My initial impression of the things had been that they were nearly as expensive as the normal cigarettes that my dad currently smokes, and that I was not sure just what the safety of the things would be, so did not want to potentially risk his health on the electronic cigarettes when I already knew exactly what the real things do and everything. Now I am glad I followed that instinct.

My dad and I went for a drive on Friday, looking for somewhere that we could overlook a nice lake while having a picnic lunch of turkey sandwiches. It was annoying, because the only wheelchair access to the park I had thought I knew of up past Big Lake was closed down because they were planting grass or something. And the entrance by the roofed over picnic area was not wheelchair friendly having a narrow entrance and one of those fenced offset just inside the opening. I’m not sure what those are meant to be fore, but it makes it very hard for anyone in a wheelchair to get into the place.

So, we went around to the dock entrance, but there was someone there with a bunch of little kids, so we left and went to the boat launch campground area a few miles away. That was a wasted trip, since the only handicapped accessible place where you could see the lake was the boat launch, and there was no parking there. So… back around to where there had been a resort before the Miller’s Reach Fire years ago. That is now some kind of private place with a gate to keep you from being able to see the lake.

Rocky Lake was the next option, however that failed to work as well, since there were no decent places to enjoy the lake from and the one place you can park and sit in a car at there was a bunch of people camping.

We ended up going back up to park by the creek near our house and eating the sandwiches there. I’m going to jump out on Google Maps and find a bunch of good places that me and dad can go picnicking at when we go to town and stuff this year.