The defense would have you believe, it's not worth losing sleep over.

I couldn’t summarize the collective facial expressions of the jury.  Each one had its own intensity, and accusatory glare.  I just couldn’t tell which way it was going to go, but I don’t think he should make any plans for the weekend.

 
        The District Attorney stepped forward, straightened the papers on the lectern like a surgeon adjusting scalpels, and let the silence simmer just long enough.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” she began, her voice smooth and yet slicing through the tension, “the defense would have you believe that this case is about uncertainty, about ambiguity. But the truth is simpler. It's printed in bold, black letters—on the very evidence in question.”

She lifted the corner of the stained mattress cover with theatrical flair, revealing the frayed tag.

“Do not remove under penalty of law.’ It’s not just a warning—it’s a prophecy. Mr. Collins knew what he was doing. You don’t accidentally tear off a mattress tag in a moment of passion. You don’t shred federal labeling out of boredom or whimsy. You do it when you think you’re above the law.”

There were a few uncomfortable coughs in the jury box. One juror, perhaps dreaming of his upcoming Saturday, looked genuinely disengaged.

“This isn’t just about a tag,” she continued. “It’s about a mindset. A recklessness. A disregard for consequences that has echoed throughout this trial, from the missing receipts to the compromised sponge cake alibi. If you ignore the law on a mattress, what else do you ignore?”

She stepped back, eyes sweeping the room like a lighthouse beam searching for a fish-stick.

“I rest my case.” She glances at the clock, hoping it was lunch time.

The defense attorney, wearing a paisley tie and the kind of expression one cultivates after years of losing arguments to stubborn houseplants, rose slowly. He adjusted his glasses, which didn't help his intelligence at all.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he began, his voice gentle, almost meditative, “we find ourselves today not merely confronting an alleged act of mattress-tag removal—but an existential quandary. A riddle wrapped in terrycloth.”

He let the silence stretch, inviting the jury to wander into the metaphysical fog he was conjuring.

“What is a tag? A label. A designation. A symbol imposed by bureaucratic decree. But Mr. Collins… he questioned the fabric of this reality. He tore not just the tag, but the illusion—that we are bound by silent, stitched threats handed down with every Sealy or Serta.”

One juror blinked rapidly, possibly reevaluating every purchase made at Bed Bath & Beyond.

“Consider, if you will, Thoreau at Walden Pond. Did he not reject the constraints of society? And now, you ask if Mr. Collins is guilty of removing a tag? I say—he was removing shackles. He was seeking truth on a spring-loaded platform of conformity.”

A pen dropped in the jury box. Reverent hush.

“And the so-called sponge cake alibi? Ladies and gentlemen, that cake was compromised—yes—but so are we. So is the world. And if you convict Mr. Collins, you convict every citizen who ever dared dream without tags.”

He sat down heavily, like a man who had just wrestled fate and lost his watch in the process.  (I have no idea what that means).