Lies, Damned Lies, and Testimony: Tell It to the Magistrate!

Help Wanted: MAGISTRATE

Shift work; evening, weekend, and holiday hours required. Serves as judicial officer at various police stations. Apply Room 102, Adult Detention Center.

That's an ad you don't see in the help wanted columns every day. But there it was, alphabetically between laborers and maids. A very curious ad indeed.

John Jasper mulled it over for a while and reread the ad a few more times. He was intrigued, but he was also a little suspicious. In the back of his mind was the thought that there was a scam occurring in room 102. Then again, it was the Adult Detention Center, so it had to be legitimate, didn't it? There was only one sure way to find out. So off he went, seeking room 102.

Such moments change people's lives, and John Jasper's life was forever changed when he became a magistrate of the Commonwealth of Virginia. He was taught the job the same way he had learned to swim in summer camp -- they threw him off the dock into deep water. But this time, in addition to deep, it was also strange and mysterious water.

Along the way, he was told that everybody lies, and everybody knows it.

The magistrate's job, he discovered, is to figure out what happened, not who's telling the truth. Since everybody's lying, nobody's telling the truth, so determining what actually happened is what's important.

Join John Jasper in a sometimes exasperating but unfailingly hilarious romp through Virginia's criminal justice system. You'll discover the funniest (and sometimes saddest) "out takes" the magistrate's office has to offer.

Here's a sampling of chapter titles: "He's Deaf, I'm Chinese", "'Y' is for Asian", "Combat Boots and a Mini-skirt", "A Jerk, a Parakeet, and an Iranian", "A Rocket Scientist", "'Z' is for Allute", "DWI -- Too Drunk to Walk", and our personal favorite, "The Finger."