ambivalent comment

It's great to tell them all the rules but I almost got a client in trouble by doing this b/c I wrote pretty much those same rules plus his stay-away instructions on the back of his summons to return to court. When he was rearrested for violating his stay-away the cops found this paper in his pocket and the prosector tried to use it as evidence that my client had ample notice that he was supposed to stay away from the specified area. The judge saved me by asking the prosecutor, “Do we have any evidence that he [my client] can read?” The prosecutor was completely flustered by that and muttered something like “we can assume...” but the judge wasn't buying it. Of course, the judge's skepticism came from the cop's testimony about my client's utter bewilderment as to his location, otherwise I'm sure my client would have been headed to jail. As it was, he walked out of there that day, which was pretty cool.