A fifteen year old Washington boy, Joshua Krawiek, took on state prosecutors single-handed and soundly defeated them, much to the annoyance of the presiding judge.

His whole journey into absurdity began when he returned to his locker at school one day to find his backpack missing. Drug-sniffing dogs had singled out his locker, and police found film canisters that they claimed Joshua was using to transport marijuana.

In fact, Joshua used the film cans (which he got for free from various local film processors) to transport bait for after-school fishing trips, and even went to lengths to get a drug test for marijuana use (which turned up negative of course), but the prosecution wasn't interested in facts in this case.

So disinterested in facts were they, that they charged him with possession of drug paraphernalia (there was far too little pot residue found in the cans to charge him with drug possession; where the residue came from is anybody's guess). The problem is that possession of "drug paraphernalia" (film cans) is not a crime in Washington state.

Also disinterested in facts was Joshua's appointed public defender, who lied on record about his communications with the boy, and who didn't seem to care about actually defending the case. Joshua fired the attorney and represented himself.

And he won. It was undeniable that he had been charged with a crime that did not exist. This shamed both prosecutors and judge, who was forced to dismiss the lack-of-a-case, but not without a desperate face-saving mini-lecture: "Don't laugh when you leave this courtroom, thinking you have beat the system because you have looked these things up yourself. We are going to get you down the road."

Don't laugh because you beat us because you knew your rights! I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too! Ahahahahah! AHhahahahaha!

---Nick