Squirrel-Soother Exonerated by Kiddie Lawyers
The Daily Probe - February 7, 2000
The context for this and other Daily Probe articles is provided here.
SALAMANDER HOLLER, GA (DPI) - When Leo Franklin Darcy heard the
judge's gavel fall, he assumed that he would be watching the world
from inside a prison cell for a very, very long time. Instead,
thanks to the efforts of Ms. Ida Whumpet's kindergarten class,
Leo Franklin Darcy is back at home with his feet propped up and
with a bottle of Jack close at hand. "We were studying the legal
system," said Aunt Bea look-alike Ms. Whumpet. Lord thank you for
celebrity look-alikes who spare me from having to write a real
description. Anyway, Aunt Whumpet continued, "Instead of just
reading the entire Georgia legal code like other kindergartners do,
I decided that we should seek some real-world experience."
The intrepid Ms. Whumpet asked her class if they knew of anyone who
might actually be in jail. As luck would have it, little Melanie
Waters had an uncle named Leo who had just been sentenced to the
state pen for indecent exposure and lewd behavior. His defense
lawyers maintained that Uncle Leo had actually been petting a
comatose hairless squirrel at the playground, and some television-
bedazzled children had mistaken this for the same act of self-love
that they had witnessed in a story on "Dateline NBC" the night
before.
Ms. Whumpet's class flooded the local attorney general's office
with their endearing crayon drawings of Uncle Leo At The Park
Rubbing His Squirrel, and faced with this heart-wrenching evidence,
the prosecutor asked the judge to release Leo Franklin Darcy from
prison and drop the charges from his record. A grateful Uncle Leo
leaned back in his tattered recliner and guzzled several swallows
of whiskey before telling this reporter, "I love 'em little Whumpet
kiddies. They saved me twenty years in the slammer." Asked if he
could ever repay his debt to the Littlest Lawyers, Leo Franklin
Darcy smiled with a twinkle in his eye and said, "I'm gonna try,
hell yeah. I'm goin' there for show 'n' tell next Tuesday." He
leaned in close, winked, and said, "I'm gonna show 'em my
squirrel."
- Reported by Chris Jones
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