What does he do with his days? Hanging with Dave

Dave Ross starts his day pretty
early, freeing up his afternoons for all sorts of
activities.

But one in particular piqued Luke’s interest.

“On Mondays, my wife volunteers, so there’s nothing to
get home to. And if I have a rehearsal later on in town
there’s no point in making the drive, so I hang out at the
King County Courthouse. I just find it fascinating the way
our justice system works,” Ross admits.

Turns out Dave just trolls the docket for the cases
that catch his fancy. You’d figure a guy of his renowned
wonkiness would gravitate toward process heavy proceedings
like a good zoning variance, but the veteran journalist
prefers seeing the seedy-side of life, rarely encountered
on his beloved Mercer Island.

“So I look for the assaults, prostitution, the drug
cases, that kind of thing.”

This week’s foray into the halls of justice included a
trial for soliciting prostitution, where Dave learned such
valuable skills as how investigators can retrieve even
deleted data from a Blackberry, like the contact info for
your friendly neighborhood pimp.

Luke wondered if Dave ever gets hassled for hanging
around, but it turns out they pay him little attention.

“I’m very non-threatening. If anyone would look at you
weird, it would be the cops who are there because at all
these trials there are all these cops at the (exit) just
in case he (the defendant) decides to bolt or something.”

Luke just finds the whole thing weird, if not just a
bit threatening to his image.

“All I want to say is, if you’re ever down there biding
your time and they bring in the defendant and it’s me,
just don’t make eye contact. I want the policy to be, ‘we
don’t know each other.’ I’ll lose all my credibility,”
Luke tells Dave.

“That’s what I do now,” Dave responds.